


The Lunatic In The Courtyard

by tubbyk



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:43:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tubbyk/pseuds/tubbyk
Summary: Complete: Post-Savoy.





	1. The Lunatic

Porthos didn’t really care that the lunatic was standing out in the courtyard, in the middle of the night, on the coldest evening of the year, in the snow, in just his shirt and breeches, staring. Or that he’d done the same thing each night this month, on the most bitter evenings of the season, every time it snowed. Whatever afflicted this man was none of Porthos’ business and he had no intention of making it so. 

Only, this man was a musketeer and as someone who might at some point fight alongside Porthos, might have to defend Porthos against whatever the threat might be, might have to watch Porthos’ back when he couldn’t do it himself, it seemed to matter just a little bit that the man appeared to be a complete raving lunatic. 

Well, maybe not raving. It was hard to apportion that term when Porthos was yet to even hear the man speak a single word. 

Four months he’d been in the garrison and he’d met all the musketeers, won money off most of them through cards or bouts, was on nodding terms with many of them, exchanged words daily with one or two of them, and had befriended exactly no-one. 

The blame wasn't all theirs to be fair. Porthos never went into company easily. On the defence or on the attack, that’s how it was. He knew what to expect as a newcomer and he held his head high as he waded through his peers, daring them to mock or converse, both things he’d become equally wary of through experience. 

Lazing here at stupid-o’clock in the morning watching the lunatic as Treville had tasked him to do was a tedious drudge that seemed to have no point to it, but it was still preferable to other activities that put him in the firing line of barely disguised looks and comments regarding his background and appearance. Then he’d have to either fight back or turn away, which led to either Treville’s or his own disgust.

No, this was definitely preferable. The lunatic paid him no attention, even now after all these weeks where Porthos no longer hid in the shadows, but sat openly on the long bench, observing silently and noting the pattern of where the man moved, stood, stared, then walked stiffly around, stopping and staring some more, repeating this over and over until finally he settled in the middle of the courtyard, back rigid, arm outstretched, pointing down at the ground in front of him, head held back, neck muscles taut and tense. This was the climax to the strange singular dance where the wild, dark eyes glittered under the ragged mop of hair that flailed around his pale, haunted face in the wind. It was the only time there was a sign of true animation and emotion from the unhinged musketeer and it also signalled the end of Porthos’ watch for he now knew that the man would stand rigid in that position until well after Porthos felt his duty ended. 

One night, Porthos would stay and see exactly how long the fool would stand there in his statuesque pose, gathering snowflakes on his shoulders and hair. He’d follow him to see where he went during the day, where he disappeared off to before the first ranks of men staggered out from the barracks to search for early morning brew and sustenance. One night, Porthos really would show enough interest to investigate. 

A yawn stretched his jaw wide and he raised his head up as a small cold flake of snow settled on his cheek. 

He shivered.

As with every other night, tonight was not the time to care so he slid slowly off the edge of the bench and began to trudge back to the basic comforts of his room, hoping the embers in his fireplace still radiated some heat, shaking his head one last time at the madman as the snow began to flutter down around him.

 

\----------------------

 

“Captain, the lunatic was out in the courtyard again last night.”

“I’ve told you before, his name is Aramis. Try again.”

“Captain, the lunatic called Aramis was out in the courtyard again last night.”

Treville gave Porthos his most withering look and if he was even slightly humoured - which seemed highly unlikely given his expression - he hid it well. 

“I will let my men find amusement about many subjects, Porthos, but not this one. Not Aramis.”

Porthos almost asked the when, where, why and hows but already felt his interest level was too high, regretting mentioning spotting the lunatic – _Aramis_ \- out in the freezing cold at 2am to Treville in the first place all those weeks ago and now paying for it by becoming his official night watcher. Watching was all he intended to do and all he’d been asked to do so he met Treville’s expectant gaze with his best poker face and offered up nothing more. 

Treville exhaled loudly and waved at the door. 

“Fine, Porthos. If you’re in that kind of mood and have no further information then you are free to go.”

But just as Porthos was about to step through the doorway Treville spoke again. 

“I know you don’t have any history with Aramis, but you should know that he was one of my best men. A soldier’s soldier. What happened to make him as he is wasn’t his fault.”

Porthos chewed on his lip then shrugged. “There’s a lot of lost souls floating around Paris who used to be top of their game at their chosen profession. A million hunched old men in workhouses who used to run and lift and feel power in their muscles before they withered away. Lots of down and outs who could be fabulous if they were only given a chance. Lots of people like me who could have been rich and powerful had they ever learned to read and write and been born with a different skin colour. Life is never fair.”

Treville straightened and surveyed Porthos intently. 

“Well, you’re in a fine, poetic, righteous mood tonight.”

“Sorry, Cap’n,” said Porthos, and he was, a bit. 

“No, no, don’t be sorry. I choose my musketeers because they can fight. I let them stay and advance because I learn to know them as men. We all have to work to try to understand each other more. That’s how trust and friendships are born.” 

The smile on Treville’s face as he approached immediately made Porthos suspicious. 

“Keep watching out for Aramis. Learn to know and understand him.”

“I’m not of a mindset to make friends.”

“Perfect. Neither is he.”

“He’s mad!” Porthos saw Treville scowl and added quickly, “Sir. He’s … he stands there in the cold, in the middle of the night, staring at the snow, watching the ground, looking at nothing, moves on to another space, looks down again at …. I don’t know what?”

“The bodies of his dead friends.”

“What?”

“That’s what Aramis is doing. He’s back there, in Savoy, reliving the moment when his fellow musketeers were slaughtered in the snow, in the middle of the night. He’s watching over them, guarding them even as their blood seeps into the white ice beneath them.”

Porthos frowned, horror growing as he tried to picture now what Aramis saw each night. “I heard about Savoy. Heard they was all gutted in their sleep.”

“Not all. Twenty men died. Two survived. It took a monumental effort to replace those lost soldiers. You benefited from the recruiting I had to do to swell the ranks in the garrison again.”

Porthos wondered if that last comment was meant to challenge him in some way, but the words only seemed to make Treville’s shoulders sag and he leaned back heavily on a table, rubbing his brow wearily. 

“I’m not trying to rile you, Porthos. I know you’re still trying to fit in and I know it’s not easy for you. I’ve given you the task to watch out for Aramis because he’s not even trying to fit in any more and I can’t work out how to help him apart from giving him lodgings here, trying to keep him fed and tended to medically and tolerating his nocturnal routine because I don’t know what else to do.”

Porthos chewed his lip and ran his mind over what little he actually knew about the man. “I hadn’t really thought about where he lodged. He’s always still out there, starin’ at the ground by the time I turn in. Never thought about where he went during the day or when it wasn’t snowin’.”

“He sleeps. Stays in his cold, dark room when he does awaken. He doesn't help himself. Doesn't seek comfort or warmth. I take him food, threaten him with everything and anything to make him eat, but I’m just another inconvenience to him.”

“Cap’n, I’m not sure I’m the right man to watch him. I’m a soldier. I don’t know how to help someone who’s all crazy ‘n’ disturbed in the mind. You can’t always help lunatics.”

“He’s not a lunatic,” snapped Treville. 

“I won’t call him that again,” promised Porthos carefully, and this time he felt he meant it. “But I don’t know what he needs to help him get better. I didn’t know him before Savoy, I don’t know him now and I haven’t ever even spoken a single word to him. I don’t have a clue what to do.”

“Then you and I are both at a loss.”

Treville rose and stood in front of Porthos, head down, hands on hips, thinking. When he finally looked up he sighed out and put a hand on Porthos’ shoulder. 

“I don’t want this to be a burden on you. But I can’t watch Aramis day and night by myself. His friends are all dead, except one, who deserted after the massacre. That in itself haunts him greatly. You see a madman in the courtyard, but I see the ghost of a fine soldier, a joyous man who loved fighting, loved women, loved his friends, swept Paris up in his arms and embraced life with endless enthusiasm. I went to Savoy and the bodies had all been wrapped and carted away but their blood still stained the snow. My fingers came away red when I touched the ground where they’d fallen. I won’t have Aramis’ blood staining my hands as well.”

“I still don’t know how to help, but I’ll follow your orders and do my part and watch him.”

“Thank you Porthos. That’s all we can do.”

 

\--------------

 

The Winter routine continued. If it snowed, the lunatic – Aramis, as Porthos tried to train his brain to call him – appeared. It was snowing a lot and Porthos was very tired and very over this almost-nightly exercise. The fruitlessness of the whole situation tested Porthos to the point where he had almost demanded to be relieved from the task, but Treville’s description of Savoy, of the massacre, the knowledge of what this man – Aramis – had gone through made Porthos accept the vigil as part of his commission. A challenge with no obvious solution.

He would still not ask, not interfere, not speak or move to disrupt the routine, but he would at least watch and pay his own respects to the invisible bodies of his predecessors as Aramis stood over them. 

That all changed one night when Aramis completed his silent homage and settled in his final pose then drew out a pistol and slid it up over his chest and neck, let it caress his cheek and finally cradled the cold steel against his temple.

Porthos yelped in surprise and ran forward, hands held out to show he was unarmed. 

“Whoa, whoa now, stop!”

Aramis spun around and aimed the barrel directly at Porthos’ head. 

“Okay, stop, please stop. It’s okay. I’m not here to harm you, I’m just here to make sure that you’re not hurtin’ yourself.” Porthos eyed where the pistol was now pointing then added, “Or me for that matter.”

At the tense set of Aramis’ jaw, eyes black and mean with intent, Porthos held his hands up further to show he only meant peace. 

“My name is Porthos. I’m a musketeer. I saw you here, then I saw you pull out your pistol and I only want to make sure that everything’s okay. That you’re alright.”

Porthos tried to move out of the firing line of the pistol but the barrel followed him as he shifted. Taking a risk, he took a bold step forward. 

“Your name’s Aramis, isn’t it? Heard you’re a good shot with that thing. One of the best.”

He risked another step forward but the pistol reared up under his nose making him sway back, hands high, a forced smile of conciliation on his face. 

“It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

This was the closest Porthos had been to the man and now he could see in detail the unkempt, ragged hair, matted, not groomed, Porthos guessed, for at least five months. Since Savoy. His skin was very pale and dull apart from the dark purple-tinged rings under his eyes which spoke of sleepless nights and stress. There was the tiniest hint of a tremor in his body but that arm holding the pistol was set hard and fast. Like those eyes which bored into him. They were angry and cold, not insisting to know why Porthos was there, only demanding that he leave.

Porthos decided to change tack. 

“Do you need anything? Is there somethin’ I can get you? I wanna help, really.”

He risked another small step forward and Aramis made a noise akin to a snarl. He might be severely disturbed but Porthos could see the musketeer instincts and reflexes still in full control. This wasn’t a man he could easily distract. 

“My name is Porthos,” he tried again.

“I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Leave me be.”

It was such a surprise to hear the man speak and it so echoed Porthos’ own feelings about company that the corner of his mouth genuinely twitched up as Aramis turned away with a dismissive wave of the pistol. It also gave him the chance to seize the weapon, which he did with haste but not with enough foresight to escape the elbow and fist that slammed up into his face as the weapon was snatched back as quickly as he’d taken it. 

“ _Ahhhhh,_ fuck, stop it! I’m trying to help you!”

Aramis had already turned away again, swishing the pistol absentmindedly, so he clearly wasn’t expecting a very large pair of hands to wrap around his legs, then yank, sending him sprawling forward into the snow-slushed mud and knocking the pistol out of his hand.

He may have been taken unawares, but he was quick to react and it was all Porthos could do to hold him down as he wriggled around so he could see Porthos and direct the aim of his kicks to the most sensitive targets. 

Porthos valued those sensitive targets and he was well aware what Aramis was trying to do as he deflected a sharp boot away from his groin. 

“Squirmy little bugger, ain’t ya,” he growled as a knee connected painfully with his stomach. “Well try wrigglin’ your way out of this…”

Dropping on someone with a dead weight wasn’t wise when other opponents were around to take advantage of your undefended back. But it was perfectly reasonable and satisfyingly effective when it was just one very large musketeer flattening another, smaller, squirmy, insane, increasingly angry musketeer into the cold, wet ground. 

“Get off me you fucker!”

Aramis strained and cursed and hit Porthos’ back with his hands but couldn’t move him even a fraction. It took him longer to concede than Porthos had anticipated but eventually, with an exasperated ‘damn you to hell’ Aramis went limp beneath him. 

It is always prudent to wait a good amount of time after your opponent concedes before raising your head up to gloat or threaten or say whatever words you have to say to them to finish the fight once and for all. Porthos was not new at this and he’d experienced the good and bad outcomes of lifting his head expecting victory and getting a bloodied nose instead. 

So he was cautious as he lifted his head, curling it slowly around the man’s cheek to avoid a full on head-butt. And expectant of some sort of retaliation. And fully aware of all the things that could possibly happen in this situation. 

But Porthos was caught completely off guard when he was suddenly kissed, hard, deep and passionately, a tongue even flicking inside his mouth and tasting him thoroughly before he could register what had happened.

He was so stunned that he didn’t react when he was roughly pushed away and Aramis slipped out from under him. Stunned at the tactic. Stunned that it had worked. Stunned at being kissed like that after so long. Stunned at being kissed by a man. A man. He’d been kissed by …..

Aramis had created a fair bit of distance between himself and the man he’d just kissed and he was just rising after bending to pick up his pistol when Porthos grabbed him around the waist and threw him across the courtyard into some barrels. He may not have thrown him the whole length of the courtyard, but it certainly felt like it. There was no point pondering the matter because no sooner had he smashed Aramis into the barrels than he followed with strong, angry hands, grabbing him, hitting him, hurting him, each punch accompanied by thunderous growls Porthos wasn’t aware he was consciously making.

A window opened and faces looked outside, making Porthos huff and drop Aramis back down at his feet. 

“Nothin’ here worth wakin’ yourselves for. Shut the window before I come over there and do it for you.”

The faces disappeared and the shutters were slammed shut before Porthos could exhale another puff of air into the night. He closed his eyes for a long beat then glared down at Aramis and his handiwork that now marked the pale skin. 

“Christ, what on earth were you …? This is ridiculous. I’m meant to be lookin’ out for you not …. Look, I don’t want to be here. I want to be in my room, lying by the warmth of my fire – which has probably died out now by the way - with a bottle of wine and not anywhere near snow or cold or some idiot that I’ve been ordered to babysit who put a pistol to his head then kissed me - _kissed me_ \- because he has a serious death wish.”

“Then leave me alone,” bit back Aramis sourly, slowly pushing himself to his feet again and slumping back on to the edge of the bench.

“I can’t.”

“Because Treville gave you orders.”

Porthos threw his hands up, unable to plead denial. “All right, yes. Well, partly. And also because from what I can see, you’re not bad, just mad. You’re not hurtin’ anybody ‘cept yourself and I’m thinkin’ you kissin’ me was a provocation not a proposal and you thought it would be an easy way to get rid of me.”

“It worked as well as all my other attempts at anything lately.”

“You wanted to provoke me and you did.”

“I wanted to get rid of you yet you’re still here.” Aramis waved the pistol in the air and exhaled in frustration, a puff of air visible for a second before dispersing up into the darkness. “Not exactly a successful exercise.”

Porthos frowned when he realised that despite all the commotion the pistol had ended up in Aramis’ hand. He was tired rather than asleep, had been violent when he was advocating peace and now this man who he wanted to be rid of was clearly in need of guidance or he’d have a corpse on his conscience by sun up.

He held up his hands in peace again and gestured at the misty night sky, clouds shading a strange tainted yellow which boded ill. 

“Look, the weather’s closin’ in and it’s gonna start snowin’ again. Come with me. We gotta get you out of the cold and I’m thoroughly sick of bein’ out here and if we’re gonna annoy one another we might as well do it away from the chill. If you show me where your room is I promise I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night.”

 

\--------------------

 

Porthos took one step inside Aramis’ room then had to fight not to recoil back through the doorway. 

“Christ, it’s freezing in here.” He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What on earth is that smell?” Porthos shivered and looked at the bed, which had little in the way of blankets and a mattress which looked like it had barely survived medieval times. The fireplace appeared forlorn and unused in an age and what few possessions there were in the room were covered in months of dust from lack of use. Numerous trays of barely touched food sat rotting and degrading slowly in the corner, and Porthos could finally find something to be thankful for with the cold weather conditions. 

He stole a look at Aramis and noted that his words had drawn attention to the dire state of the room. The man blinked and looked about in mild surprise, seemingly only now noticing the conditions he’d been living in for months. 

“C’mon, you can’t stay here. Ain’t nobody could find any warmth or comfort in that room.”

Porthos took off down the side of the barracks at speed, keen to get out of the elements, only stopping to urge Aramis on when he lagged behind. 

It was only a short walk to his quarters and he pushed open the door and held it wide to herd Aramis through, the warmth from inside sending a shiver down his spine as he followed him inside and shut out the bitterness of the night, thanking his luck that the fire was low but still radiating heat. 

Aramis glanced around, seemingly not through interest, but more to get the basis of his bearings. 

“You wanna bowl?” Porthos hooked the pot of gluggy stew with an iron bar, bubbles festering and popping in a slow, satisfyingly gloopy way as he stirred then poured it out into two smaller clay bowls without waiting for an answer. 

“Here, take it,” he urged, holding one out. He sighed and shook his head when it wasn’t immediately accepted. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. It’s late, I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m fairly certain you’re hungry even if you don’t know it. And even if you’re not, it’ll warm you up. Come on, please, sit, eat.”

The bowl was taken blankly and Aramis sat on the small stout stool Porthos pushed out beside him in front of the fire. He stared into the stew for a long while then dipped in his spoon and sipped a portion off the end of it, blinking rapidly as the warmth of it registered. 

Wine was poured into a glass and handed over and Aramis accepted it without a word, drinking in small, noisy gulps. It was refilled quickly and emptied in much the same fashion, but when Aramis held out the glass to be refilled for the third time in as many minutes, Porthos shook his head. 

"Nah, I'm not gonna be responsible for you having a drinking problem as well." He sipped his own wine then put the glass aside, clasping his hands in front of him and leaning forward. 

"I'm tryin' not to judge. I wanna understand so I can help you. What's happenin' out there night after night when it snows? You follow the same routine as soon as the weather turns. You start over there by the stairs then you walk around, stopping and staring at the ground. Nineteen times.” At Aramis’ look, Porthos nodded. “Yeah, I counted it now four nights in a row. It never changes. Always nineteen. Then you get to the twentieth and that’s where you lose me and it gets scary.”

Aramis briefly put his head in his hands, then he rose, agitated and began to pace the room. 

“You don’t have to tell me, but if you want to, I’ll listen,” continued Porthos, trying to keep his tone low and steady, unthreatening. “Help me make sense of it. You get to that twentieth spot then you stare and stare and stare, then you begin to mutter something I can’t hear, and finally you pull out your pistol and aim it at the ground. You hold that position forever. That’s where I can't work out what is happening.”

There came no request to stop, but Aramis rested his arm on the wall above his head then banged his forehead once against it before he rested his head heavily against the old oak panel. 

“Nineteen bodies, I’m guessin’. Musketeers," Porthos prompted softly. “Then you stop at the twentieth and point your pistol. The only thing I can think of is that it was a Spanish soldier. He was dead, maybe injured, you aimed. You probably fired, took out some of your frustrations on him, got some revenge ….”

“He wasn’t Spanish.”

“What?”

It took Aramis a good long time to elaborate but when he did he pushed himself off the wall and began pacing some more. 

“He wasn’t Spanish. He was …. a musketeer. Our youngest, Jerome.”

“If he was one of ours why’d you point your pistol at him?”

“They hadn’t killed him cleanly. They’d hacked at him, his leg was almost off, hanging by a slice of bone and muscle. It wasn’t an honourable kill. In fact, it wasn’t a kill at all. When I found him he was still alive.”

A shiver of horror prickled up Porthos’ spine as he watched Aramis pacing, talking quickly, unable to settle. 

“They had taken all our medical supplies, all our food and horses. I didn’t even have any water to quench his thirst. He was only twenty. His mother had begged him not to come to Paris.” 

Aramis stared at the floor, at the ghost of Jerome, then fell to his knees, his face a picture of anguish. 

“He was screaming. I prayed for something to take him into the darkness but his cries did not stop.” Aramis let out a strangled cry of his own and looked up beseechingly at the ceiling. “So young. How could you let him remain lucid? How could you not take him and end his pain?”

Another groan escaped him then he pulled out his pistol and stood, arm outstretched, pointing the barrel at the floor. 

“He begged me to end it. Pleaded for me to take away his pain.”

Porthos tried to speak but the words caught in his throat as he saw Aramis’ face crease in distress.

“I begged for Marsac to help me but he had gone. My god refused to hear me. There was no-one but me and nothing I could do except perform that one task being asked of me.” Aramis finally met Porthos’ gaze and stared at him, the last flickering light from the dying fire dancing on his pale cheeks, confessing on the back of a small, tremulous breath. “I killed that poor boy. I shot him, I did it and may I burn in Hell for my sins.”

A moment, letting the truth of the nightmare sink in, then Porthos rose and faced Aramis, a mountainous man, a fearful presence but voice soft and low, expression sombre and full of empathy and understanding.

“I don’t know a lot about most things, but I do know about bein’ a soldier in battle. I know we all think about the what-ifs while we’re waitin’ in the trenches and we imagine what we’d do if it were us bleedin’ out in the cold, damp mud. What we’d ask for with our last breath, and whether anybody would find us or remember us or tell tales of us to our loved ones. If that were me, slaughtered in the night, hacked and dying, I’d be damn well ordering you to shoot me too. No, look at me!”

Porthos advanced and grabbed Aramis by the shoulders to stop him turning away. 

“You didn’t kill that boy. The Spanish did that when they massacred your regiment. And I’ll tell you this now, there’s things worse than death. And dyin’ a painful, horrible death, alone and scared is one of them. All you did was help that boy find peace in the only way you could when he asked for help to end it.”

“I shot him.”

“And I would have done exactly the same.”

Aramis lifted his head and studied Porthos, searching his eyes for the truth, brow drawn down, his dark eyes wild and desperate to be absolved.

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t ‘cos I haven’t been in that situation and god help me I never will,” admitted Porthos, “But I like to think I’d do the right thing if one of my friends was dying a horrific death and beggin’ me to help him. You’re a good man.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know that if you weren’t good you wouldn’t be takin’ it so hard that every now and then the thing you most want is to put that pistol to your own head.”

The glimmering eyes went wide to hear someone else acknowledge his darkest impulses. 

Aramis licked his lips then frowned and dropped his head, shoulders slumping.

“I don’t know how to get past what happened,” he whispered.

“I don’t know either, but we’ll have to find a way or neither of us is ever gonna get a decent night’s sleep, then we’ll both start lookin’ like a couple of mountain men.”

The last words were said with Porthos reaching out and tugging the bottom straggly ends of Aramis’ beard. 

There was an initial flinch from Aramis at the touch, then he seemed to hold his breath and absorb the sentiment before he threw his head back and exhaled a shaky sigh of relief tinged with amusement. 

It wasn’t a laugh or even quite a smile, but the way it softened Aramis’ face and altered the harsh set of his mouth made Porthos’ eyebrows raise with surprise and delight. 

At last there was a glimmer. The first tiny sign of a breakthrough and that knowledge made Porthos beam, but he wiped it off his face and tempered it to a tentative smile as soon as Aramis dropped his head to look at him. 

“Porthos,” Aramis murmured quietly as his eyes roamed over the dark features and Porthos realised that despite shadowing him in the courtyard for months, despite the fight and the kiss and all the back and forth discussion tonight it was only now that Aramis was truly setting his name and appearance to memory. 

“That’s me,” he said. 

“You can’t help me, but thank you for trying.”

“I got us both inside earlier than normal. That’s somethin’ I s’pose.”

Aramis didn’t seem to have anything more to add to the conversation and he ran a thin finger over the etchings on his pistol, lost in thought, his expression weary. 

“Maybe I should safe keep that for a while,” suggested Porthos softly.

“It’s mine,” scowled Aramis automatically before letting the words and inference settle. “Oh, I see,” he added thoughtfully, his tone expressing some surprise, “You think I’m going to ...?” 

“It’s a fair assumption, don’t you think, considering what you did tonight?”

“I would never …” began Aramis, “… not really.” Then he closed his eyes and Porthos could see the panic rising as he remembered putting the pistol to his temple and hovering that finger over the trigger.

Aramis met Porthos’ concerned gaze with eyes still dark and wild. 

“I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I believe you’re sincere. Sometimes though, life catches up with us and it seems so easy to just take ourselves out of it so we don’t feel pain any more.”

“You have experience with … feeling pain?”

“I’ve lived, yeah.”

When Porthos didn’t elaborate, Aramis didn’t push, just nodded and lost himself in his thoughts for a long while until a hand with an upturned palm came into view in front of his pistol. 

“I promise I’ll look after it. I’ll give it to Treville to keep if you like.”

Aramis frowned and hesitated but eventually passed it over. He looked at his pistol, being turned over in Porthos’ hands as he inspected the delicacy of the etchings with a raised eyebrow of admiration. When Porthos glanced up, Aramis let out a small breath and closed his eyes, then backed away and sat heavily on the end of his bed, head dropping onto his chest, a sudden moment of relief, of stark realisation about what he may have let himself do with that pistol had Porthos not intervened. 

“You need to sleep. I’ll go and light a fire in your room and take over some extra blankets.” Porthos went over to stoke his own fire, using it as an excuse to secure Aramis’ pistol safely under his jacket and out of sight. He kept up a light chatter, hoping to divert Aramis from darker thoughts until he was safely back in his own room. “I’ll check on you when I come back from morning training. You should come out and watch if you feel up to it. Winter sun is better than no sun at all. You wouldn’t have to join in, you could just sit and soak it up. I’ll make sure nobody bothers you. Who knows, if the Captain gives me an errand to do you might like to come with me. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if …..”

As Porthos turned to gauge Aramis’ reaction to his suggestions he looked, blinked, stepped forward, then blinked again and put his hands on his hips. 

Aramis was curled up on his side on Porthos’ bed, mouth slightly open, breathing deeply, fast asleep and oblivious to every single one of his well-meaning proposals. 

Relieved at first, then slightly annoyed at the realisation that this man was occupying the only bed in the room, Porthos considered and dismissed the notion of waking and moving him all within a second’s thought. As much as he himself needed sleep, Porthos knew Aramis richly deserved a night free of the chill of an empty room, a barren fireplace and demons in the courtyard. 

Still, he could pout and pretend he wasn’t happy even as he gently covered the man with a couple of blankets, threw one against the bottom of the door to stop the draft and lay a few out for himself in front of the fire. Feeding the fire with the last of his supply of logs, Porthos gave it a few rough pokes then lay down and tried to make himself comfortable, hoping his back would forgive him in the morning. 

How strange it was, this life as a musketeer. Of all the things he envisaged himself doing on his commission, hearing the confessions of a madman then tending to him as he slept in his bed was not something he’d imagined being part of his role. 

As the fire warmed his back and sleep beckoned him, Porthos swirled all this new information around in his head, forming a fractured picture of this odd lost soul in his room, one whose nights were filled with snowflakes and the ghosts of slaughtered friends, a constant exhaustion of guilt and self-recrimination and regret. Someone with such a sunny reputation that had seemingly evaporated along with the life force of those musketeers in Savoy, but who could kiss a stranger without knowing their name and leave them with lips that still tingled with the aftermath of his misplaced passion.

Porthos grunted and rolled over, pulling the blankets higher and ruing that the lunatic’s addled mood was clearly infecting his own thoughts now with those surreal musings.


	2. The Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! I had to turn this into a 3 chapter story as this second chapter went monstrous.

The snowflake that settled on the tip of Porthos’ nose made him rub his nostrils roughly and resist the urge to sneeze. More bits of white fluttered down past his line of sight and joined the expanding pale carpet on the ground around him. 

He pulled his coat tighter over his shoulders and cast an eye of concern to where Aramis was standing, staring, in only his white shirt and breeches. 

They hadn’t spoken or seen each other since the night when Aramis had fallen asleep in Porthos’ room. With a late training exercise to attend, Porthos had risen and stretched his poor protesting back, noted the man curled fast asleep in his bed under a mound of blankets, then quietly dressed and left to begin his day. 

It may have been polite to say something before leaving but words seemed cheap when compared to the value of sleep for this man. A note may have sufficed but of course writing was not something that had ever been added to Porthos’ repertoire of skills. 

So Porthos left, Aramis was not there when he returned later in the day, and in the three nights hence the weather thankfully took a turn for the better and no snow had fallen. So far, Aramis had never appeared when there was no snow, but Porthos had felt it prudent to check the courtyard regardless. A part of him felt the urge to knock on Aramis’ door, to check on his welfare, but a larger part of him still refused to get further involved so he informed Treville of the basics and passed the daily duty of care on to him instead.

Porthos huffed and rubbed his hands together, hunching down further on the bench. Nineteen now. Almost there, he told himself as he fought off a shiver and watched Aramis stop once more near the centre of the yard. Then he chided himself for his own lack of respect. These were dead men. Individuals. It was shameful to reduce them to mere numbers to be counted down without a further thought. At least Aramis was paying them their due respect. 

The final stop – Porthos refused now to give it a number – and Aramis’ body tensed, arm out, pointing down. Porthos’ skin prickled and it was no longer from the cold. He wasn’t one for religion but he dropped his head down and said some quick rudimentary words of remembrance. When he finally looked up, Aramis was staring at him.

Feeling like an interloper to a private moment, Porthos straightened, bit his lip, then nodded at Aramis. The man blinked numerous times then looked back down at the ground in front of him, dropping his arm as he sank down to kneeling. One hand lay flat on the wet earth in front of him, the other held over his heart, and words of whispered prayer flowed quickly and passionately from his lips. 

Vowing not to leave Aramis alone this time and to stay until daylight with him if necessary, Porthos was surprised to see him cross himself then rise after no more than twenty minutes. Unsure what to expect as Aramis walked towards him, Porthos stood and waited but Aramis strode around the bench with purpose and didn’t stop, merely nodding acknowledgement of Porthos as he passed. Uncertain of his role but determined not to let anything happen to Aramis, Porthos followed him silently until he saw Aramis enter the doorway to his musty cold room and shut the door firmly behind him. 

It seemed prudent to wait, so he hunkered down in the doorway opposite to see if there were any more surprises for the night, but there were no movements or sounds, not even the dull, flickering light of a candle inside and eventually Porthos could stand the chill no longer and retired to his own room, wondering if progress had finally been made tonight, even if only in the recognition Aramis had shown him in passing and the fact that he had gone to bed before Porthos. 

 

\------------------------

 

The snow barely eased off all week but each night Aramis continued his new routine, culminating now in prayer rather than pose. And each time he ended his ritual, he passed close to the bench and acknowledged Porthos with a nod to the side. 

Tonight, however, Porthos strode out into the courtyard and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Aramis sitting on the bench top, hunched forward, elbows on knees, two glasses and a bottle of wine beside him. 

Porthos perched calmly - but tentatively - on the bench beside him, giving him room, not interrupting his thoughts, watching the snow settle on the courtyard earth unblemished for once by Aramis’ routine. 

“I need to remember but I’m also trying to find a way to forget. I’m sorry you have lost so much sleep because of me, but I wanted to thank you.” 

Aramis’ voice was soft and low as he poured and handed Porthos a drink then took one himself and sipped it thoughtfully when Porthos remained silent. 

“When I saw you praying I knew I needed to find another way to pay my respects. Reliving my pain didn’t heal my soul, it tortured it. You helped me realise that embracing my religion was better than shunning it.”

At Porthos’ pained expression, Aramis put a hand on his arm. 

“What is it? Have I said something out of turn?”

“Nah. No. Not at all. It’s just ….well, I’m not really one for religion.” Porthos gave Aramis an apologetic shrug. “Only really know the prayers my mum used to say with me ‘fore I went to sleep. Don’t ever say them now, ‘cept the other night I felt the need to say ….something. Even if it wasn’t quite right and it wasn’t my place.”

His arm was patted gently and Aramis raised his glass to him. 

“Saying a prayer because there’s nothing else you can say is the perfect time to say it. And it made me realise that neglecting my own prayers was to the detriment of my soul, so I thank you for prompting me.”

Porthos drank to hide his discomfort, as he felt he’d done little to encourage Aramis to pray, but it did make him feel more at ease to have Aramis beside him rather than performing for ghosts. 

“You should try this during the day. Drinking with others, friends. In the tavern.”

“My friends are all dead, or gone,” remarked Aramis bitterly, making Porthos mentally kick himself for his comment, but then the hand returned to his arm. “I apologise again. The way I said that was uncalled for.”

“No, it was my fault. I should have thought before speaking.”

“You deserve no correction or admonishment, I know you not yet you’ve shown me nothing but kindness.” Aramis sighed and finished off his wine. “I am so used to having these sour thoughts swirling around in my head, always tasting regrets and loss on my palate. I’ve spoken so little to people recently that sometimes those thoughts manifest into words before I can turn them into something more favourable.”

“Perfectly understandable,” said Porthos with a dismissive shrug, then he downed his wine and nodded toward the barracks. “Now, I might be pushin’ it, but why don’t you try to get inside at a reasonable time tonight, ay?”

“And awaken in daylight? You sound like Treville. He barges in every day trying to rouse me and get my skin to taste the sun.”

“He means well.”

Aramis grimaced. “I know. But I still hate it.”

“Maybe, but you should try it. Be good for you, getting’ back to wakin’ in normal hours.”

Aramis stared at the ground before him then nodded, resolved, and stood, grabbing the wine bottle and swigging the last of it in a long series of gulps. At Porthos’ dubious expression he put a hand on his shoulder and began walking him back in the direction of the barracks. 

“You and I are both now resolved to help me feel better but I cannot promise it will be easy.”

 

\------------------------

 

Eight nights brought snow and with it another bottle of wine, then two when Porthos began to bring one as well. The evening didn’t always start with Aramis sitting on the bench – he sometimes paced the courtyard, watching, praying – but it did always end that way. 

And as much as Porthos felt relief for Aramis stepping back slightly from his vigil and finding some normalcy in his manner and mood, he also knew that something had settled within himself with this new routine of sitting and talking each night. 

The ninth and tenth nights didn’t bring snow, but Porthos felt a swell of something in his chest when he found Aramis waiting for him regardless. 

He found Aramis to be excellent company on the nights when he felt able to converse and recognised more than a few glimpses of the man described to him by Treville and others who had known him before Savoy. Aramis didn’t again speak of Savoy and Porthos didn’t begin to speak of the Court and neither of them pushed for it to be so. 

Porthos marvelled at how the words flowed easily from him now where before he was tense and awkward when he did deign to speak. But however effortless his own speech felt, it was nothing compared to the smooth, rich tones of Aramis. His words wrapped around you like a rich, warm cloak, mesmerising in their cadence and when stirred with flattery they were altogether seductive. 

Frowning, roughly throwing the blankets off the bed and onto the floor, Porthos shook himself from his flowery thoughts and rubbed his eyes. ‘Seductive’ wasn’t a word any man should use about another. He blamed last night’s wine – four bottles ultimately when both men produced a second – and the conversation topic which had for the first time turned to one of Aramis’ former paramours, a Madame Forquet, and the unfortunate moment her husband had arrived home early and chased Aramis outside wearing nothing but a yelp. 

He smiled thinking about it as he dressed, but had to chide himself when his thoughts drifted less to imagery of the chase and more to the picture of Aramis running naked through the streets then having to beg for clothes from a less than amused local draper, Monsieur Bonacieux. 

Groaning, he splashed water on his face and leaned heavily on the table, shoulders hunched, trying to gather his thoughts before he went outside to face the world.

Porthos was under no illusion about the fact that these recent fleeting ideas – slivers of fantasy that were oh so wrong – were insinuating themselves in his mind merely because someone was showing him a form of friendship where before, for a long time, there had been none. To have company, someone to confide in, someone to simply ask you how you are, to smile at your approach, it seemed simple, but it was a fundamental thing which had been missing from his life for so long and now he was letting it fool him into fantasising that it could turn into something else which had been missing from his life now for so long. 

The Court had taught Porthos many life lessons. The cruelty of life, how to fight to survive, the value of a youthful, dark, exotic, male body when it offered itself to men of means and certain predilections. Yes, Porthos had done what he had to do to survive and when he grew bigger and stronger and had more options available to him he vowed never to be the one taken advantage of again and to fight against injustices. 

He could hold his head high now, more in command of his life than ever before, but seeing Aramis so broken and devastated, guilt racking his soul every night, Porthos knew how tenuous that hold on control really was. 

His own vows were becoming compromised even now. His vow to remain uncaring and aloof chiselled away by a pair of dark, warm eyes and a wild mop of hair he itched to smooth back and tame. A smile too hidden behind a rough brush of moustache to truly appreciate. Dirty white shirt, so oversized and unlaced that it sometimes slipped from a shoulder, exposing skin that needed to be further uncovered, explored, touched, licked …..

Porthos let out a loud growl of reprimand and stomped his foot in anger, roughly grabbing his weapons belt off the table and muttering darkly to himself as he went out the door, “I really gotta stay away from him for a while and concentrate on getting me a mistress.”

 

\------------------------

 

The Law of Sod of course had other ideas which is why as Porthos stomped through the barracks the first person he laid eyes on was Aramis throwing a rug out onto the ground outside his quarters. He blinked in surprise, checked the sky to make sure that it was really daylight and not snowing, then approached Aramis’ open door and suddenly found himself enveloped in a cloud of dust and debris.

“Oi!”

“Ah, Porthos. Apologies. I’m afraid my enthusiasm to clean got the better of me.”

Sneezing as the dust settled around him, Porthos sniffled and peered around Aramis to see his room in a dreadful state of upheaval. 

“Cleaning or wrecking?”

Aramis made a face. “It all needs to be burned, really, but a thorough dust and wash should suffice.” He looked around then bent in conspiratorially, “I’m also attaching a lock to the inside of my door to stop certain captains from entering when they are unwanted.”

“He won’t like that and I’m sure he’ll get in if he wants.”

Aramis shrugged. “I’m sure he will too, but it would take a lot of effort and I shall relish hearing him knocking and cursing outside my room in the meantime.”

Porthos studied him for a moment, relishing the lucidity and taking the chance to admire ….view…. him in daylight for once. No aspect of him lit up by sunlight was displeasing unfortunately and it was all Porthos could do to bite back an appreciative smile.

“This may take some time,” mused Aramis, looking at the mess over his shoulder. 

“No matter. This is all good. You and daylight meeting each other for once, you up and about, doin’ stuff, being active instead of sleepin’. It’s all good.” Porthos gestured south and made a face. “I’m on patrol down by the river so I can’t stop to help. How ‘bout I catch up with you tonight, maybe?”

Aramis hummed in vague agreement then bent to pull a table away from the wall and Porthos strode off, pleased to find Aramis acting so normal yet even more determined to concentrate on himself, on being a manly musketeer, finding a mistress – urgently – and not making any more offers such as ‘catch up with you tonight, maybe?’ which did nothing to distance himself from the new source of his longing.

The patrol turned out to be way more exciting, and taxing, than expected. Red Guards appeared and got in the way of an arrest, deliberately Porthos was sure, and an unsightly fight ensued, followed by threats and recriminations, a thorough dressing down by Treville, then confusing congratulations by the same man and instructions about how to best them should they interfere in the future. Wine was produced – fine wine at that from Treville’s own stock – and the tale was retold again and again as the drink loosened tongues and embellished descriptions. 

He may not have found himself a mistress but he’d so successfully concentrated on being a very manly musketeer that he’d barely had a moment to think about Aramis, which was of the good. But now, heading back to his quarters, the sun lowering, the vast quantities of wine warming his body and expanding his thoughts, Porthos again found his attention – despite his better promises to himself – wandering in the direction of dark eyes, anticipating the night ahead and his now routine sojourn with his new friend. 

As Porthos pushed open the door to his room a pale slip of parchment blew back and settled in the middle of the floor. Bending to retrieve it, Porthos saw elaborate flourishes in black ink that marked the page. He noted the amount of words – eleven – for he knew his numbers – but the message escaped him completely.

Porthos frowned. He’d never, ever been sent a note before, by anyone. Very few at the Court could read or write and those who could knew better than to write to those who couldn’t. Treville was the person at the garrison most likely to dish out daily orders by quill and ink but he alone knew Porthos’ secret, and always gave him his orders verbally so that ruled him out. 

Aramis? It was possible. Maybe even likely. But no matter how hard or long he stared at the impenetrable patterns of ink they refused to reveal the message, the tone, or the scribe.

Asking Aramis was the obvious thing to do, but it would also reveal to him that Porthos couldn’t read or write, which was an embarrassing admission and not something that Porthos could bear to be revealed. 

The best course of action, he decided, was to knock on Aramis’ door but pretend he had yet to visit his own quarters, thus avoiding any knowledge of the note and its contents. 

Unfortunately, there was no answer to his soft knocking and when he tried the handle the door didn’t budge. 

“So you managed to fit the lock then,” Porthos muttered to himself, grinning at the thought of Treville’s expression when he made the same discovery. Deciding to leave Aramis asleep, Porthos wandered back to his quarters, depositing the page of writing on the table then slumping back on his bed for a moment to decide whether he should go directly to seek an early evening meal from the garrison cook or whether the tavern presented a more enticing option to continue drinking and perhaps plumping up his pockets if he could convince anyone to challenge him at cards. 

As it happened, sleep trumped both the tavern and a meal as his body’s preferred activity and he was awoken many hours later by a loud insistent thumping on his door. Porthos had barely managed to sit upright, looking for boots that he realised he’d never taken off, registering that it was dark, when the door banged open and Aramis came stumbling in, a pink gleam on his cheeks, breathing hard, bottle of wine in one hand, candle in the other, clothes dishevelled and dirty. 

“Porthos! There you are!”

“Aramis, what ….?”

“I waited for you,” he exclaimed, “I had three bottles of wine ready and I waited but you didn’t come.”

“What? Where did you wait for me? The courtyard?”

“The tavern of course! Did you not read my note?”

“I … _ummm_ … no,” admitted Porthos, knowing full well that it wasn’t a lie. “I tried your door earlier but it was locked. You must’ve been asleep.”

“Oh,” said Aramis, his relief obvious. “Oh, that explains it then. I locked the door from the inside then escaped out the window so Treville would think I was asleep. It didn’t occur to me that it would fool you too. And my note may have been lost if I didn’t slip it under your door properly. Perhaps it blew away? I left it for you earlier in the day, asking you to meet me in the tavern at 6 o’clock. I felt it was time. The right moment to greet the world again. And it was, but ….but …” he stumbled over his words and gasped for air, trying to impart everything at once, an increasing modicum of hysteria to his expression. 

“Hey, calm down. You okay?”

“I’m ….you weren’t there. I thought you would be so I thought I’d be fine and would welcome you when you arrived at the tavern but you didn’t come and there were lots of people, musketeers, soldiers, Red Guards ….”

“Red Guards?” Porthos frowned and rose to get Aramis some water. As he handed him a glass he did a double take at his shirt and realised that the stains on it were blood, not dirt. “Wait, have you been fighting?”

Aramis didn’t answer, just swallowed the water in one and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt, eyes wide and verging on manic. 

Porthos grabbed his shoulders and manoeuvred him back into a chair. 

“Right, sit over here at the table and I’ll get you some more water and maybe some wine if you haven’t had too much already, then you’re gonna tell me everything that happened from the moment I last saw you this morning.” Porthos poured water and wine then turned to carry them over to the table. “If I hear that those Red Guards or anybody else has been givin’ you grief they’re gonna get met by me in a dark alley and …..”

The door to his room slammed shut. 

Porthos blinked at it, then at the empty chair where Aramis had been sitting. He ran back over the words he’d just spoken and didn’t find anything surprising or out of order. Then as he rested the glasses of drink on the table the note – _Aramis’ note_ – now open with the writing laid bare for all to see – shifted slightly by his wrist and his heart twisted as he realised what may have just happened. 

 

\------------------------

 

“Aramis? Aramis!” 

Porthos knocked again, louder, not caring if the noise woke anybody else in the surrounding quarters. 

“It’s me, Aramis. Let me in. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Aramis!”

Porthos briefly considered kicking the door in when it was suddenly unlatched and left to slowly swing open. When he entered the room Aramis had his back to him and was fussing his hands skittishly over some random objects on his table. 

“I’m sorry I left so quickly. I think you’re right, I may have overindulged on the wine tonight. I don’t know what came over me.”

Silence stretched as neither man then spoke, Porthos staring first at Aramis’ back, then at the floor and Aramis, head bent, trailing his finger lazily over his old wooden table. 

“It’s all right, really it is,” Aramis said quietly. “I saw that you had read the note and I don’t mind that you didn’t want to meet me at the tavern. It's perfectly fine. I’m not good company after all and it’s completely understandable that you’d need some time away from me.” 

At Porthos’ continuing silence, Aramis finally turned, adopting a wide, congenial smile but keeping his distance, hands still fidgeting uneasily, this time with the laces on his shirt. 

“Honestly, Porthos. I understand.”

“Nah, you don’t.” 

All the insecurities that Porthos stomped down then locked away day after day after day were threatening to erupt and he scrunched his eyes up tight and tried to remember to breathe through the fear that now immobilised his body. 

“Porthos?” 

He could hear the uncertainty now in Aramis’ voice and knew he’d moved closer in concern. 

Porthos took a step back and folded his arms. 

“You don’t understand, Aramis. I didn’t know you were going to the tavern. If I did I’d have been there in a heartbeat. Or if I was too tired or held up in Treville’s quarters tellin' him about the patrol I would’ve sent someone to let you know what had happened to me. I didn’t know you were waiting for me at the tavern because I didn’t read the note. I saw it, but I didn’t know it was from you and I didn’t know what the note said because ….because I can’t read.”

As soon as the dreaded confession was out Porthos raised his head, tightened the wrap of his arms, tilted his chin up defiantly then dared Aramis to mock him.

What he didn’t expect to see were raised eyebrows as the information was processed then a look of sheer relief on Aramis’ face as it relaxed back into a soft smile.

Porthos scowled. “I said I can’t read.”

“Oh Porthos, I can’t sail a ship or make a clock or carve a statue out of stone but that’s only because nobody has ever taught me how.” 

“Don’t patronise me.” 

The words came quick and fierce, but Aramis only looked slightly vexed.

“How am I patronising you? If you haven’t ever been shown how to do something then how on earth can you be expected to do it?”

At Porthos’ angry pout, rejecting that argument and sitting down heavily on the bed, putting his face in his hands to hide the emotions that sat so close to the surface, Aramis sat beside him and leaned over to gently bump shoulders. 

“There is nothing about you that is remotely dumb or stupid. You’re a clever man. Everybody can see that. Now all you need is for somebody to come along and teach you how to read and write.”

“Now _you’re_ being dumb. Why even bother? It’s too late. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’m too old.”

“Nonsense. I know for a fact that Jean-Pierre could neither read nor write when he arrived here and Albien took it upon himself to teach him how. And both Banqiet and Sautin were basically illiterate but they were taught their letters by a number of people. ”

“I bet none of them were my colour, from my background. People can barely bring themselves to look at me, least of all offer to spend time with me teaching me to do something so difficult.”

“You’re being way too hard on yourself.”

“It’s true. It would take years for me to wrap my head around this indecipherable nonsense.” 

He threw the note down onto the floor and dropped his head into his hands again. 

“Well, if you’re sure it will take you that long, we’d best start right now, don’t you think?”

Porthos looked up, surprised but not really surprised at all. 

“You? You’d really try to teach me?”

“Not just _try_ , I _will_.”

At Porthos’ stare, Aramis rose, clapped his hands together and made to rummage in a large trunk in the corner, exclaiming, “I taught my nine year old niece how to read and write and I’m sure you won’t have her penchant for throwing food at me when you've had enough. Now, somewhere here I have some paper you can practise on, it’s not perfect, but it will do for now, and I have a spare quill you can keep, although I’m not sure if I have any spare bottles of ink. Perhaps if we ….”

“Hey, hey, settle down.” Porthos rose slowly and walked over to Aramis, leaning groggily on the lid of the trunk before closing it down with a thump, then turned to face him. “I’m still half drunk and I can’t do half the things I know how to do tonight, least of all wrap my noggin’ around something I don’t know how to do. An’ you’re all fired up and drunk as well and possibly not quite as in control of everything as you think you are.”

A little indent deepened in Porthos’ brow as he studied Aramis. 

“So tell me, how you really goin’?”

Aramis smiled, then grimaced, then swallowed deeply, his eyes bright, too bright as his body wavered slightly. 

“Fine.”

“I thought you an’ I agreed to tell each other the truth from now on?”

“In that case, I’m not fine.” He giggled but it was too high pitched to be normal. “I believe they call it overcompensation. I may have laughed and played in the tavern and over exaggerated my peaceful state of mind ever so slightly…,” Aramis made a face, “Well, a lot. And every soldier who laughed along with me reminded me of all the ones who would never laugh with me again. The harder I tried to appear normal, the worse it got and then the Red Guards turned up and it all went rather sour and now I’m just trying to keep going, to find something, anything to take my mind away from my own thoughts.”

“Tell me what they did?”

Aramis shook his head, adamant. “Not now. I need to focus on something else rather than speaking of such things.”

“You _will_ tell me, but if it suits you to do it later, then so be it.” Porthos filed that particular line of questioning away for later then studied Aramis for a while, noted the short, rapid breaths, the dilated pupils, the tiny tremor that still rattled Aramis’ body, then touched his arm gently. 

“Bit panicked now, are you?”

“Hysterical with a heart racing faster than one of the king’s hunting horses.”

“Then why don’t I leave you be while you try to get some rest,” decided Porthos, moving to go outside.

“No, please.” Aramis reached out and grabbed his shoulder, shook his head and took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, it’s an awful imposition, but ….tonight I fear sleeping in a room on my own. I can feel them, thoughts, ideas, tendrils creeping up my spine, into my head, telling me it’s all my fault, describing what happened over and over and ….”

“Shhhh, hey now.” Porthos thumped the door shut and locked the latch down, put a steady arm around Aramis and led him back over to the bed then made him sit down. “I’m not gonna refuse you a decent night’s sleep, so if you need me here, I'll stay.”

“This time though, I’ll sleep on the floor. It is my room after all.”

“You’ll sleep wherever I tell you to and that’s here in your bed. “

“But your back….?”

“Hurts anyway, so won’t make no difference what l lie on.”

“Porthos?”

“Mmmmm?”

“I mean it - I promise that I _will_ teach you how to read. Not just because it takes my mind off my own dark thoughts but because I want to. I really do. You deserve to be able to expand your knowledge to absorb the great literature of the world, and to be able to write down your thoughts, pen your own prose, read my scribbled notes when I bother you with them. I can’t wait to see what magnificent things you will do with your new skill.”

Pleased beyond speech, Porthos dipped his head down to hide his hot blushes then turned away, scooping up a pile of blankets to make himself a bed again by the fire and only relaxing when Aramis settled into his bed across the room and blew out the candle. 

 

\-------------------------------

 

Aramis smiled fondly and traced the backwards letter with his finger, the still-wet ink smudging onto his skin. 

“Marsac always wrote his ‘s’s around the wrong way too.”

Porthos noted that Aramis suddenly went quiet and stilled his finger. He knew the name. Realised he’d been waiting a long time to hear Aramis speak it. Knew of the man, what he’d done. Deserting his dead brothers. Deserting Aramis, leaving him alone to cope, to kill the one young soldier left alive. Deserting the families of the dead who wanted, needed so desperately to know the circumstances, and deserting Treville who needed to know what happened to make sure it never happened again. 

Yes, Porthos knew of Marsac. 

But he’d also been told of the deep friendship between Aramis and Marsac. Always at each other’s side, inseparable, impossible cohorts, a mutual adoration it was said. 

Was it possible to be jealous of someone you’d never met?

Aramis lay a hand on the top of the paper by Porthos’ hand. “I apologise. My thoughts went elsewhere.” 

“S’okay.”

 _So did mine._

“Marsac and I went through a lot together. Always together,” Aramis added wistfully, pulling his finger away from the lettering and losing his gaze in the bottom of his empty wine glass. 

“I heard you was close.”

Not raising his eyes, but lifting his brows briefly in agreement, Aramis pushed the glass away then ran his fingers roughly through his hair, hiding his expression from Porthos. 

Eventually, he raised his head and briefly met Porthos’ steady gaze. 

“As close as two men could be,” was all Aramis murmured, checking Porthos’ expression before dropping his eyes back down immediately and Porthos felt a strange twist inside his gut and was thankful for no further explanation on that front. “He could barely read or write when he arrived here. I had to help him to decipher notes sometimes. Help him to compose a letter if he needed to write one. One time, he asked me to show him how to write my name with a flourish on the capital A and ….”

It was all too raw still. Porthos could see that. The words dried up and Aramis hunched back into himself. 

“’S’okay,” whispered Porthos, nudging Aramis’ forearm. 

“It’s really not,” he sighed, running a hand through his curls then rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Course it is. You’re not gonna get better overnight and look how far you’ve come already.” At Aramis’ dubious expression, Porthos gestured around the room. “It’s night, it’s snowing, you’re in here, not out there, pacin’ about the courtyard until the sun comes up. You’re teaching me to read ‘n’ write – even if I do still think that it’s stupid for an ‘s’ to be the other way around.”

Aramis chuckled and pointed at the lettering – _yet again_ – and explained, “Some letters you don’t start writing in the space directly after the last letter. You have to put your pen over the other side of the space to begin writing it. It’s the same for ‘c’s, which you’ve also managed to write backwards there by the way.”

“Well it’s stupid and whoever designed it like that should be locked up in the king’s dungeon until they change the rules,” huffed Porthos, peering at his scrawled lettering with a crinkled nose. “Anyway, don’t change the subject. I was tellin’ you how far you’ve come. Don’t deny it.”

“I won’t. I shan’t. But sometimes it seems like I’m never going to feel like me again. I’m always going to be lost.”

“Rubbish. You’ve spent three weeks teachin’ me to read ‘n’ write every night and I can notice the improvement in you even in that small space of time.”

“Can you just!” Aramis turned side on and raised his eyebrows expectantly. 

“Absolutely, I mean look at you now. Asking that, in that tone of voice, looking at me with a twinkle and a challenge in your eye. You wouldn’t’ve done that a couple of months ago.” 

Aramis huffed but Porthos wasn’t finished, gesturing to the dirty plates by the door, waiting to be taken out and washed. 

“I didn’t even have to force you to eat tonight. You gobbled your food down even quicker than I did. It’s only natural that you’ll still have times when you’re feeling down but you’re not acknowledging how far you’ve already come.”

Blowing out his cheeks, Aramis shrugged then looked around the room at the plates, at the window where snowflakes tried in vain to settle on the pane before turning liquid, then at the jumbled pages of his and Porthos’ writing on the table before him. He turned fully to Porthos and gripped his shoulder, leaning in. 

“You’re an astonishing person, Porthos.” 

“Me?” 

“Yes, you. I admit that I _have_ come a long way but it’s you I have to thank for it all.”

“Rubbish.”

“Listen to me. In the five months after Savoy I barely functioned, but when you began to help me, talk to me, counsel me, divert my attentions back to all life has to offer, it became easier. I didn’t for a second forget what happened in Savoy,” he clarified quickly, “But something eased in my soul and it is you I have to thank for that, my friend.”

“I was just followin’ orders,” said Porthos, then added quickly lest Aramis began to retreat, “At least that’s what I was doin’ initially. But you’re tricky. Somehow in makin’ you feel better you’ve also managed to make me feel better too. Less ….isolated.”

“It’s as I’ve told you, Porthos. You need to let people in or else they’ll never be privileged to be on the receiving end of your wonderful talents.”

“Listen to you, wafflin’ on like a daft ponce.” 

But Porthos had to dip his head to hide his grin, the swell of his chest threatening to explode with the praise. 

“At least you’re not accusing me of sounding like a madman,” added Aramis, sitting back but not turning away and watching Porthos carefully with a hint of mischief in his eyes. 

Porthos tried not to look guilty but couldn’t hide his dread as he glanced up. 

“Hah!” Aramis clapped his hands together and slapped Porthos on the knee. “That’s confirmation if ever I saw it.”

“Oh, I see what you just did. Well monsieur, if you’re feeling that perky then why don’t we both ditch the lessons tomorrow night and take ourselves to the tavern.”

Aramis licked his lips nervously but nodded, then nodded again, more surely. 

“Together. We’ll go together.”

“We will. And when you say you’ve had enough, we’ll come straight back, even if I’m just about to relieve a thousand men of their coins at the card table.” 

“I’d forgo any kind of panic just to watch you do that too, my friend.”

Porthos couldn’t hold back his smile this time and called an end to their evening lesson by gathering up the pages of scribble and tipping his imaginary hat at Aramis. 

“Get some sleep,” he ordered as he stepped out into the chill. “You’ll need all your energy for tomorrow night.”

 

\----------------------------------

 

 _My friend._

The words turned over and over in Porthos’ head. Aramis had called him that a number of times in the past few weeks and he was beginning to believe that he really meant it. 

To be unburdened of the secret of his illiteracy, to share the problem with someone such as Aramis, to have help, amused encouragement even when he was petulantly throwing the quill across the table in frustration and being teasingly compared to a nine year old girl, it was more than he’d ever hoped to find in this new life as a musketeer. He'd found unexpected friendship and even more unexpected than that was the knot of anticipation that twisted every time Aramis looked at him or smiled or leaned on his shoulder and congratulated him with genuine joy whenever he managed to force the quill into making a mark that vaguely resembled the current letter Aramis was urging him to copy. 

In between the battle to learn to read, Porthos found himself imparting stories. Not just of battles and soldiering adventures but his own, private tales of the Court, of Charon, of Flea, of love gone wrong, of the stark but fleeting memories of his mother. And Aramis listened. He truly cared and listened and he seemed to think no less of Porthos for having told his tales of crime and street-begging. 

And when Aramis spoke of his own life, his own loves and losses, he drew Porthos in and wrapped him up in his world. What was the description Porthos had used but no longer allowed himself to express? Ah yes, seductive. Very, very seductive. Not purposely, but just because. 

Aramis was on his mind now, day and night and the mere thought of stepping out with him in the tavern, in a joyful environment, showing the world that he had not just a friend, but a wonderful friend, loyal and true, gave Porthos shivers and made his gut clench in anticipation of the night ahead. 

He was madly, hopelessly attracted to Aramis, but determined to tamp down any feelings for as long as he could. 

Now, having accompanied the cardinal to perform niceties to a visiting dignitary, and luckily finishing early, Porthos had hurried back early to the garrison to rest and prepare for the evening. Not that he would rest and not that he had any better clothes than his uniform to wear anyway, but nevertheless, he felt the need to be as prepared as possible and to look as good as possible. Striding through the arch, Porthos stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the sight before him. He knew he shouldn’t, but acknowledged that he couldn’t draw his gaze away for a second, and his poker face seemed to have completely deserted him, so goodness knows what his expression looked like. He was utterly mesmerised by each small area of smooth, delicious skin that was slowly being unmasked by the masterful scrape of the barber’s blade on Aramis’ neck. 

“Does it look that terrible?” 

Porthos blinked. “What?”

“The way you’re staring at me, do I really look that awful now my face is revealed?”

“You look … _ummm_ ….you appear ….well…..”

Aramis frowned and batted away the barber’s hand. 

“Normal,” clarified Porthos, before Aramis could flee. “You look normal. Neat. Kinda dignified.”

Snorting, Aramis gave both Porthos and the barber dubious glares but remained in the chair and deigned to let the hair-trimming continue. 

“I swear, if you keep staring I’ll take the blade to you myself!”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’” promised Porthos, stealing one last look before turning away, adopting a faux scowl and stomping past the line of men who watched him as they waited to get the barber’s attentions. 

As he opened the door to his rooms a note blew back across the floor. Frowning, grinning, knowing who it must be from, Porthos sat on his bed and opened it. There wasn’t a lot to read. Three lines, three words, all written in what he recognised now to be Aramis’ flourishing hand.

The first word he half recognised and half guessed. Aramis had been getting him to practice writing his own name over and over and although the ‘P’ in Aramis’ hand was a looping, dramatic mark, quite different to his own jagged effort, Porthos could recognise it and the other letters of his name well enough to guess it was addressing him. 

The next line had a number – six – and two letters. Porthos went over it again and again before deciding – and finding it not hard to guess - that it said '6pm'. 

The word on the last line confused him. He had written his own name over and over again to learn the letters, to see how it looked, how the letters could match the way he spoke his name. And when he tired of writing his own name he wrote Aramis’ and also made Aramis sweep his quill across the page so he could see the ease of writing he should aspire to. So he knew Aramis’ signature, his name, he knew it began with the first letter of the alphabet, an ‘A’, a big ‘A’ at that. This was definitely not an ‘A’ and the last letter was not an ‘S’, as it was in his own name and should be in Aramis’. 

No, the first letter was something different. A letter he’d seen but not one he had yet taken to heart. And the last letter was another of those stupid backward letters. 

Porthos pursed his lips and got out his books of letters to try to solve the mystery Aramis appeared to have set him. 

 

\--------------------------

 

When Aramis opened his door to Porthos’ rapid knocking he already held his hat in his hand. His beard and moustache were trimmed neatly, his hair still absconded from any attempt at a tidy style but it looked better just because there was way less of it now to fly in all directions. He didn’t wear the full uniform of a musketeer, just the trousers plus a white shirt fringed with lace on the collar and cuffs and a dark grey cloak held together with light leather straps and silver studs. 

“You’re late,” he chirped, grinning first at Porthos’ wry expression then chuckling at the note he tapped firmly on to the palm of his hand. 

“If you’d just signed it with your own bloody name I’d have been here on time,” drawled Porthos. 

“But you knew who it was from,” stated Aramis with a sly smile.

“Yes, but you clearly wanted me to figure out what the word was that you signed it with and I wasn’t gonna turn up until I’d worked out what that word was.”

Clearly pleased at his challenge being taken up, Aramis pointed at the note. 

“Well?”

“It says ‘Lunatic’. You signed it ‘Lunatic'.”

Aramis chuckled. “I’m impressed.”

Grunting, Porthos shook his head and stepped aside as Aramis shut the door. 

“Why would you sign your note ‘Lunatic’?”

“Because that’s what some people occasionally call me …. don’t they, Porthos!”

Snorting with amusement, Aramis made to walk off but Porthos grabbed his arm and held him back, hiding his nerves with a scowl. 

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what, my friend?”

“Aramis! How'd you know I used that word? Tell me!”

“Treville told me,” Aramis said simply, and then he did walk off, albeit whilst smirking back at Porthos.

“What? Why would he do that? Oh god, I’m sorry. Aramis, I’m so sorry.” 

Porthos said that to his back and made no attempt to close the gap between them, but Aramis slowed and waited under the garrison arch for him to stand alongside then put a comforting hand out and commenced walking with it draped over Porthos’ shoulder. 

They walked in silence but before they entered the tavern, Aramis pulled Porthos aside and turned him so they were facing each other. 

“Try not to be mortified, my friend. Treville didn’t mean to get you into my bad books and he mentioned that word in quite a different context to the one you're fearing.” At Porthos’ clear misery, Aramis tipped his chin up with a gloved finger. “Some time ago I asked him if he was making you stay with me or if you were doing it out of pity. He told me that you had initially followed orders and considered me nothing more than a complete lunatic. But that your duty had long since ended and that I should consider your familiar presence to be an indication of friendship rather than any penchant you may have for shadowing lunatics.”

Porthos digested that explanation and then burst out laughing. It bellowed from him long and loud, shaking his body, bending him double, making people turn heads and sending Aramis into fits of laughter too. When he finally straightened he put his own arm over Aramis’ shoulder, gasping for air in between small bursts of residual laughter.

“I take back my apology. You _are_ mad. Stark, raving mad.” 

“And yet you still wish to be my friend and drink with me?”

“Oh absolutely. I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else.”

 

\-------------------------------

 

Porthos shifted his knee and knocked it gently against Aramis. 

“Hey, you okay?”

Aramis lifted his hand and wavered it slightly. 

The night had gone well so far, all things considered. Aramis laughed and smiled and drank and made all the right gestures and comments to suggest that he was back to normal. But Porthos knew to look beyond the moments of merry. Aramis had encouraged Porthos to play cards so he could try to guess – privately of course – exactly the moments when he was cheating fellow drinkers of their coin, but Aramis was as bad at spotting cheating as he was at playing cards and lost all bets accordingly even though he was he one player who Porthos didn’t fleece. He didn’t seem to mind, but had excused himself from the game way too early for Porthos' liking and departed to a table in the corner by himself. It was as sign of how much Porthos had tasked himself to be responsible for Aramis enjoying the evening that he had folded his hand – begrudgingly – and joined him a few minutes later. 

“Occasionally it can all seem too much,” Aramis said, strain evident in his voice, panic close to the surface but kept at bay, but then he looked at Porthos and his lips curled into a small smile. “You make it tolerable, my friend. No,” he corrected, “that doesn’t do you justice. You make it all acceptable. Safe. Dare I say enjoyable. Everything warms to my heart when you’re experiencing it with me.” He huffed and eye rolled at the difficulty he was having finding words. “My dear Porthos, what I’m trying to say is that everything seems better when you’re by my side.”

Suddenly, Porthos was never more certain in that moment of two things: 

One: that his heart was definitely going to burst free of his chest at any second. 

Two: that he was falling madly, hopelessly in love with Aramis.


	3. The Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next chapter was going to be the last but it's stretched to over 12000 words so I've split it in two. Everything is written except for one scene in chapter 4 ( damn you, Marsac), then it will be posted after editing, so hopefully in the next couple of days. Thanks so much for your patience. This is the slowest of slow burns!

“It’s no use teaching you words you’re not going to use. That’s not our first priority. I’m not going to start making you learn how to write down the names of all the varieties of apples in Normandy.”

Porthos smiled sheepishly. “I like apples.”

“So in the middle of a battle when you need to send an urgent message to ask for help you’re planning on writing a note to Treville regarding apples, are you?”

They both gave each other a look, but when Aramis shook his head and turned away Porthos couldn’t help chuckling and he could tell that Aramis was also sharing the laughter. It was hard to express how nice it felt to be able to swap jibes with someone and know they would still have your best interests at heart when they turned back to you a second later.

“Before we do anything else you’re going to continue learning the basics which pertain to the notes you’re likely to need to write as a musketeer.”

Aramis sat heavily on the chair beside Porthos, handed him a chunk of bread then stuffed a full piece in his own mouth and tapped rapidly at the paper on the table. 

“Those words there are what you’ll keep working on and when you know them fully we’ll move on to the next set,” he said between chews. “What are we likely to need to tell Treville in a note? That one of us is ‘hurt’, that we’ve been delayed and will ‘stay’ in whatever town we’re in for another night. We might need ‘help’ or we might need him to ‘send’ something or someone to us. You already know how to write my name, and most names can be shortened to a few letters for the purpose of a note. Granted, names like Cardinal are more difficult but if you can get the first four letters of his name I’m sure Treville will know who you’re referring to.”

Porthos mulled over the words on the smudged page in front of him, the ones he now recognised and had written, chewing thoughtfully as he put it aside then pondered the fresh page of new words written in Aramis’ elegant hand. 

He sighed and sent Aramis a rueful look but all he received was a pat of encouragement on his shoulder as Aramis leant in close to his ear. 

“Ahh, it’s daunting I know but you can do it, my friend. Look how far you’ve come already.”

“It’s been over two months.”

“I know! You’ve done so well that I’ve had to learn new words myself just to have something fresh to teach you.”

Porthos scoffed and shook his head at the lie, throwing the last of the bread at Aramis when he held his hands up innocently, insisting it was the truth. 

“I’m not sure I can do this tonight,” he groaned, stretching out the knot in his shoulder that had tightened since the skirmish on patrol that morning. He looked at Aramis and offered mid-stretch, “Tavern?”

Porthos now knew that it paid to watch Aramis closely when awaiting an answer. He’d offered before and each time it had been declined with a dismissive wave, a claim of tiredness or a complaint about the weather. He’d never uncovered the truth from Aramis about the night the Red Guards had taunted him in the tavern, but others had offered enough accounts for him to build a picture and to be able to guess that his reticence to frequent public drinking areas was due to the possibility of it happening again. Not that Aramis couldn’t handle himself in a fight. Lately he’d begun to participate in the training of recruits and in the garrison competitions the musketeers held amongst themselves. But being taunted about Savoy was a step too far and possibly not something Aramis could yet deal with. Nor should he have to. Porthos cracked his knuckles in anger at the thought of it and despite Treville’s warnings about fighting the Cardinal’s men he wished fervently for an excuse to find himself face to face with them with no constraints. 

“Porthos …. _Porthos!”_

“Huh?”

“I said if you want to have a drink then we should go now before it gets too late. You’re on patrol in the morning and I am helping Pieter with his musket skills.”

“Really? You’ll come to the tavern?” Porthos couldn't keep the surprise and delight hidden.

Aramis sighed, put upon, “Only if it will stop you from nagging me to go.”

 

\--------------------------------------

 

“How did you cope after your mother passed away?”

“I did what I had to do. I scrapped, begged, stole, learned off others who also had fend for themselves after they’d been abandoned or orphaned. Did things I wouldn’t do now but had to then to make it through to the next day.”

“That must have been horribly harsh.”

Porthos once again spun the glass around on the table, daring the dregs in the bottom to spill out onto the old oak bench. He didn’t elaborate immediately. This night out was intended as respite for Aramis, or a chance for him to speak about his demons if he so wished. What it wasn’t meant to be was a chance for Aramis to interrogate Porthos about his past. 

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t interrogating. Demanding. No. Asking, more like. 

Porthos glanced up at Aramis who was sipping his wine thoughtfully and not threateningly or demandingly at all. 

In reality, he’d enquired, politely, about Porthos’ time growing up. That was all. And that was all it took for Porthos to find himself unburdening about his past. 

“I’m sorry,” said Aramis, leaning in and touching Porthos’ arm. “I didn’t mean to pry or make you uncomfortable.”

“Nah,” he said with a grimaced smile, “It just feels strange to actually describe it to someone. I usually keep those memories in here.” He tapped his temple then his chest and finished off the last of his wine. “Truth be told it was harsh and it wasn’t at all easy but look at me, I survived. Did what I had to do until one day I wanted more. Felt like a man, fought like a man, but stole and lived like a guttersnipe. Thought of my mother and how she would have wanted me to strive for something better, another kind of life. Took all my anger from battlin’ in the Court and wore it for real on proper battlefields. Eventually realised that I’d be a better soldier if I controlled my anger, only usin’ it when necessary. It’s been tough, really tough, but I made it here on my own, as a musketeer, a man who can hold his head high, all the way from being an angry low-life thief from a Paris slum.

When Porthos looked up Aramis was smiling and holding his glass up in salute.

“Your mother would be so proud.”

“Aye, she would. I still think of her every day. Wear her smile on my heart, hear her calling my name on the breeze if I listen hard enough. She’s with me and she’s notching up every little victory I make in life, I know she is.”

“You’ve come a remarkably long way. That’s quite an achievement.”

With his ears and cheeks starting to turn crimson at the praise, it seemed a salient time for Porthos to duck and run off to coax another bottle of wine out of the innkeeper. He excused himself while the bottle was being arranged and made a trip out the back to piss against the wall to further delay returning to the table, just in case the flush of his face was still obvious. 

Really, Porthos was not gone long, so he thought. But no sooner had he re-entered the tavern through the side door - intending to collect the bottle of wine on the way past - than all hell broke loose. 

His eyes naturally wandered over to where Aramis sat, but instead of one lone musketeer sitting quietly by himself, he saw a large group of Red Guards surrounding the bench where Aramis sat and was now rising, pushing his glass of wine away angrily. 

Ignoring both the bottle of wine being waved at him by the innkeeper and his imploring words not to start a fight or break anything, Porthos stormed over and approached the Red Guards from behind. 

“Oi, watch out,” said one of them as he scanned the room and caught sight of Porthos’ angry approach. “This one looks like he needs to be shown some manners.”

“You gentlemen got a problem?” 

Porthos caught the attention of most of them but one – a particularly spiteful guard he recognised called Fouquet, who wore an oversized black hat adorned with a fluffy red feather– was too busy leaning across the table, pointing and muttering something at Aramis which sent him deathly white, even as he reached for his pistol with one hand and drew his sword with the other.

“I said, do any of you have a problem, ‘cos if you do you can direct it at me.”

His booming statement made Fouquet straighten and turn to face him, his expression adopting a sneer when he recognised Porthos. 

“Well, well, if it ain’t Treville’s mongrel dog. He’s gettin’ quite a collection of circus freaks, ain’t he? A mongrel dog and this other one here, too scared to help while his friends were slaughtered. Typical of you musketeers – all noise and frills until the fightin’ starts, then you run and hide like the yellow-bellied cowards you are.” 

“Take that back,” warned Porthos. He didn’t draw a sword or pistol but his tone made a couple of the Red Guards take notice and ready their weapons. 

“Or you’ll do what, mongrel? Bite me? Piss on my shoes? Run off to Treville and hide under his skirts like this one here? Look at him, so frozen with fear that if I slaughtered everyone here he’d still be standin’ there like the walkin’ corpse he’s become. Lily-livered coward.”

As it was, the punch that took Fouquet out came from Aramis, not Porthos, and as the other eight guards piled in Porthos made sure he drew their attention to him by roaring as he sent the first man flying across the room. 

 

\---------------------------------------

 

It took some time to decipher that the light blinding his eyes was coming from a broken shutter in the window of his room. There was a long, low groan which Porthos eventually decided had come from nobody else but himself. He groggily fought at all the unseen unknowns, struggling for a better grasp on consciousness. A hand held steady on his chest and it took a longer moment for Porthos to decide that it definitely did not belong to him. 

Porthos fought to push away the hand and rise but only managed to wince and clasp his stomach.

The hand patted him back down. “Easy, my friend. The blade may not have cut anything vital but it still went deep.”

“Blade?” Porthos blinked and tried to focus. “Aramis?”

“I was fearing you would never awaken.”

He smiled and rose to pour Porthos some water.

“What happened?” Then before Aramis could answer, Porthos added a pointed “ _Oww!_ ” as he felt his tender jaw. 

“Exactly. _'Oww!_ " happened." Aramis grinned and handed him the glass of water. "You don’t remember anything?”

Porthos took the water and drank it slowly, despite his thirst. He frowned, trying to recall how he had ended up in such a sorry state. 

“I remember …. I recall we were at the tavern. Yes. I came back inside and before I could fetch our wine I noticed the Red Guards harassing you.”

Aramis nodded. “And then …?”

“And then …” Porthos scowled as the scene began playing in his mind. “Those bastards. They called you a coward and me a mongrel dog.”

“Well yes, they did. Initially. Although their descriptions of us got louder and more derogatory as the fight progressed.”

Searching his chest and arms, Porthos let out a whine as he noted all the bruises and the places on his skin where blades had nicked him. 

“I can’t believe we lost,” he grumbled unhappily. 

Aramis barked out a laugh. 

“My god, you really don’t remember if you think we lost.” At Porthos’ confused expression, Aramis clapped his hands together and gestured at a black hat decorated with a large red feather propped up at the end of Porthos’ bed. 

“You didn’t just win, you won spectacularly and that is the prize you claimed for your victory.”

“Hold on. If we won, then what am I doin’ lyin’ here like an invalid?”

Aramis snorted dismissively. “Oh that’s just the high price you paid for single-handedly taking out five Red Guards all by yourself, which, might I add, was quite selfish of you. By the time I’d despatched my two and turned to help you’d already turned the rest of them inside out.”

Porthos huffed and rubbed a puffy lump on his temple. “How did I get stabbed then?”

“Oh, that was a lucky – or _unlucky_ , for you – jab in the dark by one of three men you were taking on at the time. It didn’t slow you down until we’d vacated the scene and you were trying Fouquet’s hat on outside. You raised your arms to put it on, then mid-laugh … _pfffffttttt_.” 

Sitting back down on the side of the bed with a fresh cup of water, Aramis smoothed out the blanket over Porthos’ chest. 

“It gave me quite a fright. To see you prone like that after such a magnificent performance.”

“Stop wafflin’, you.”

“Truly, Porthos. You were magnificent. I’d seen you spar many a time in the garrison but to see you in action against true foes …. magnificent is the only way to describe it.” 

Ignoring the praise, Porthos grimaced and lifted the blanket to examine the main wound then raised his eyebrows in surprise as his finger lightly brushed over the neat row of stitches. 

“Who …” he began with wonder, then thought about it more clearly and answered himself. “You did this, Aramis?”

“You could at least try to keep the utter surprise out of your voice.”

“ _Oww_ , no, seriously, this is good. Better than good.” Porthos hissed with pain as he ran his fingers over the stitching again. “I’m very impressed.”

Aramis didn’t quite preen, but there was a grateful acceptance in his smile that made Porthos do a double take. 

“See, now one day I shall teach you how to accept praise without protest, as I do.”

The smile was almost something that made Porthos wax lyrical and he had to bite back his words and the accompanying thoughts as he marvelled at the way that smile softened Aramis’ face. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled swept away the lines of stress and the hard intensity of his stare melted away under the twinkling warmth of his amusement, even hidden as it was behind his unruly hair and beard. 

Porthos had a lot of confusing thoughts as he studied Aramis but he kept them mostly to himself apart from noting, “I’ll know where to take my shirts next time they need stitching.”

 

\-----------------------------

 

“And what did you do then?” 

Porthos could barely manage to get his question out, such was the extent of his uproarious laughter. 

“Well, I couldn’t very well don my breeches again, could I?”

“So you ran off with just your hat on?”

“My hat, followed by the most fervent dark wishes of Madame Verity, screamed down the Rue de Chaborn as she threw a candlestick at me.”

Belly sore from laughing, Porthos lay back on the grass by the stream and shook his head at the tale of Aramis’ latest escapade with a paramour. There was still enough heat in the Autumn sun to warm his skin and he shut his eyes and marvelled at how perfect such moments could feel.

“I do think you choose to doubt the tale, my friend.”

“Oh, no,” Porthos reassured him with a chuckle, “trust me, I very much want it to be true.”

They lay there for some time, soaking up he late rays, Porthos still fighting fits of laughter and Aramis propped up beside him on one arm, plucking blades of grass and arranging sticks and leaves in random patterns. Their purpose for being out in the fields – the master marksman helping Porthos improve his shooting skills by placing targets on a farmer’s fence, as he was doing every week now - had been forgotten.

“Go on, tell me another. Who was the one you were with last week? The lady who made you wear a blindfold?”

When Aramis didn’t immediately launch into a boisterous telling of the tale, Porthos turned his head to study him. 

Aramis was smiling but it was a dreamy, tentative smile. He didn’t look at Porthos, but he said softly, “You’re not like Marsac. He hated hearing my tales. He was always laced with too much jealousy.”

“And you think I’m not?”

Porthos was mortified as soon as the words left his mouth and he clamped his mouth shut, staring wide-eyed at Aramis, daring him to mock or crow.

Aramis did look at him, and met his gaze, briefly, but then quickly looked back to his patterns of nature. 

Eventually, he said simply, “If you do get jealous, you certainly hide it well. You hide all your imperfections so well that I really find it hard to identify any at all. You are completely spectacular.”

“You really shouldn’t say things like that.”

“And that would be because….?”

“Because … we’re men and musketeers and ….and …. _because_.”

“If you really want me to stop lauding you, all you have to do is tell me to stop.”

“Isn’t that what I just did?”

“No, you said I really shouldn’t saying things like that. It’s not quite as forceful as firmly telling me to stop.”

Porthos grunted, muttered something about semantics, then rose and began to move off without waiting for Aramis, but he heard a low giggle behind him as he was followed. And Aramis seemed determined to have the last say. 

“We shall leave our conversation to settle, my friend,” he said, “I place it in your capable hands to decide if you never want to hear me effusively - and very honestly I might add – explore and confirm your many splendid qualities when one of them requires applause and admiration.”

Stomping off back towards Paris at a pace should have left Aramis behind, Porthos could see him out of the corner of his eye, puffing and scuttling along to keep up, his mouth quirked up as he waited for possible directions that both of them knew weren’t ever going to be spoken.

 

\-------------------------------------

 

“Are you going to tell me what is wrong?” asked Aramis for the umpteenth time as they rode back through the garrison arch after a morning of shooting practice for Porthos. 

“How many times ….” began Porthos, then he snapped, exasperated, “Nothing’s wrong, okay?”

“I hear the words but your countenance says otherwise.”

“Stop taking notice of that then and listen to what I’m tellin’ you. Nothing. Is. Wrong!”

Not for the first time that day, Aramis narrowed his eyes at Porthos and gave him a dubious look. 

“You may think I’m oblivious to the way you study me, my friend, but I’m not. And I’m letting you into the secret that I’ve been studying you too, just as closely, and I know when your mind is distracted and your thoughts elsewhere.”

A tingle of something ran down Porthos’ spine at the admission that Aramis was interested enough in his wellbeing to try to pick his moods and their causes. 

Aramis sighed. “Porthos, I’ve been by your side all day, nearly every day this week. Nothing appears to have happened, you don’t appear to be injured or have had a losing fight with anyone, so I’m at a loss to know what it is that has you so ….so ….” Aramis waved his hand in the air, searching for the right word, “… morose.”

“I’m not morose.”

“Despondent then.”

“I’m not bloody despondent either.”

“Then tell me,” nagged Aramis, tone verging on a whine. 

“It’s nothing. Really, it’s not something I wish to share.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ So it is something.”

“For crying out loud, keep your voice down. Look, if you promise to keep it to yourself, I’ll tell you, okay?”

He may as well have offered Aramis the key to the crown treasury with the excited reaction it elicited. Aramis palmed off both their horses to the stable boy then hurriedly ushered Porthos through the garrison and into his room. 

Porthos scowled at the level of enthusiasm clearly bubbling away beneath the surface of his friend, despite Aramis’ best efforts to hide it as he pulled up a chair and unsuccessfully urged Porthos to sit. 

Shoving the unwanted chair aside, Aramis planted his hands on his hips and regarded Porthos demandingly. 

“Well, out with it. Tell me your secret.”

“It’s not a secret.” At Aramis’ sceptical look, Porthos huffed and crossed his arms defensively. “It’s just not something I choose to share with anybody.”

“Otherwise known as a secret.”

“I don’t have secrets,” insisted Porthos a little too defensively. 

“Rubbish, everybody has secrets.”

“Look, back off or I won’t tell you.”

Aramis took a pointed step back then held his hands primly behind his back and raised his eyebrows expectantly. 

“Right,” said Porthos, uneasy, awkward and self-protective in his pose, “So, it’s like this. Everyone has birthdays …”

“Oh my goodness, so it’s your birthday? Why didn’t you say so befo….”

“ _Aramis!_ Calm down. It’s not my birthday.”

Tilting his head quizzically, and startling at the alarm in Porthos’ tone, Aramis held his hands up to show he was ready to listen. 

“It’s _not_ my birthday,” grumbled Porthos. “Not really. I don’t know who my father is and my mother died when I was little and there’s no other family, so I can’t tell you exactly how old I am ‘cos I’ve never known the day or the date or the year I was born. It’s not a big thing but it’s big enough to have made me feel the need to choose a day of the year to be my day. Even if it’s not my real birthday and even if I don’t ever celebrate it with anyone, or tell another soul about it, today is still the day I’ve chosen to be my birthday.”

“You told me.”

“That’s because you’re a pest.”

Aramis nodded sagely, not denying it. Then he smiled, soft and genuine, and said quietly, “Happy Birthday Porthos.”

For some reason, actually hearing someone say the words made Porthos dip his head and feel his cheeks blush. But he looked up with a warning glare and said firmly, “Don’t you dare tell anyone, ya hear?”

“Oh certainly not. I promise not to tell a soul.”

 

\-------------------------------

 

Two hours. 

That’s all it took for Aramis to inform the whole garrison about Porthos’ birthday, and then to garner enough wine and ale to drown half of Paris. And when the roasted boar – how and where he procured that from remained forever a mystery - was carried in to the tavern to be feasted upon the number of revellers seemed to double in size and quadruple in rowdiness. 

Porthos was too dumbstruck to be truly angry at Aramis for spilling his secret and as he watched his friend leading the singing in his honour, swigging every so often straight from a bottle before roaring out of tune with the chorus, he found himself laughing and toasting the spirited entertainment along with the rest of the crowd. 

“Porthos, are you gonna join in the singing?” asked Robard.

“Gawd, I hope not,” yelled someone from the back of the room, “I heard him in the bath house the other day and he’s nearly as tone deaf as Aramis.”

“Excuse me, monsieur,” objected Aramis, swallowing a large gulp of wine before waving the bottle at the crowd and leaning his hand heavily on Porthos’ chest. “This man here can do anything. He can wrestle an army, flatten a horse with one punch ….

“But he can’t sing and he can’t shoot.”

“Blasphemy. I’m sure he has the voice of an angel and of course he can shoot. He’s the most spectacular musketeer of you all.”

“Bet you wouldn’t say that if he had to hit a target next to your head to save you,” another voice cried out to peals of laughter. 

There was a beat as the crowd – liking this turn of events - turned their full attention back to Aramis.

He swigged yet again then made a face and curled a finger around the neck of the bottle, pointing it at the grinning faces. 

“I trust this man with my life. If I say he could do it, he could do it.”

“Prove it,” yelled another voice, with others then chiming in with encouragement and laughter. 

“Fine. I will!” Aramis declared, turning in a circle to look for something to demonstrate his point. 

“Aramis,” chided Porthos, although he was drunk and laughing so it really didn’t come across as a proper reprimand. 

“No, I shan’t have my best friend slighted by these heathens. We will prove that you are only a small step away from being as good as the best marksman in France.”

“And that would be ….?”

“Me of course.”

“Of course.”

Drunk, laughing, feeling warm and fuzzy, Porthos ignored the fact that he was far from being the second best marksman even in the garrison, least of all in France, but he couldn’t fight the shiver of pleasure he felt at being called Aramis’ ‘best friend’. Aramis wasn’t obsessing over the title. He’d said it then moved his attentions straight on to the task at hand, which seemed to be about choosing whether Porthos should shoot at a loaf of bread or a melon to prove his point. He settled on the melon ‘because of the mess’, which eventually Porthos realised was because the melon would make one hell of a mess, therefore illustrating the success or lack thereof for all the garrison to see. 

First, the melon was placed on a shelf, and Porthos prepared his pistol, but when Aramis stood next to it with his face only inches away, more than a few people objected and deemed the shot too dangerous. Relieved at first, Porthos watched with alarm as Aramis scolded the naysayers for their lack of trust and ended up with his back against a wooden post, balancing the melon precariously on his head. 

When the melon – and Aramis – finally found their balance, Aramis raised both his arms to the side in an elegant sweep then looked at Porthos and raised his eyebrows. 

“Well? Hurry up before I fall asleep.”

“Aramis, no,” objected Porthos, wincing. 

“Come on! I know you can do this. Don’t let me down.”

The noise around him was deafening, with as many urging him on as there were more sober voices trying to discourage him. 

“Porthos, I trust you. I’m ready.”

Porthos’ better sense of judgement was being held hostage by wine, adrenalin and excitement, so he took a deep breath, planted his feet, then locked eyes with Aramis, raising the pistol to his lips and planting a long, slow kiss onto the cool metal. 

Aramis blinked then parted his lips and moistened them with his tongue. For some reason it made Porthos’ eyes dilate as he took aim and all he could see was Aramis, all he wanted was Aramis and he knew in that moment that Aramis’ eyes were also dilated with anticipation and it was about way more than one single shot …. 

 

\-----------------------------

 

Falling out into the street together amidst peals of laughter and congratulations, Porthos' mirth bent him double as he unsuccessfully tried to help Aramis pick bits of melon out of his hair and they both _ewwwwed_ in mock disgust at the stickiness and mess now covering them both. 

As Aramis made to stagger back to the garrison, Porthos grabbed his arm and steered him down the alley beside the tavern instead. 

“Here, don’t take the main route. We’d better go the back ways. If the Red Guards catch us like this they’ll throw us in the palace dungeon.”

Aramis fell back against the wall and frowned as he picked a piece of – _whatever_ – from his hair. “For being covered in melon?”

Porthos laughed again and propped himself up with one hand leaning against the wall by Aramis’ head. 

“No, you idiot. For being drunker than either of us have been for … _ever_.”

Grinning, Aramis rolled his body so he was leaning directly between Porthos and the wall. He sighed loudly and Porthos swore he batted his eyelashes at him. 

“We should do this every year. The celebration, the melon, the pistol, the kiss …”

Porthos felt his heart skip a beat before he recalled kissing his pistol for luck. He wished he was slightly more sober to work through the exact implications of what was being proposed to him.

Aramis watched him attentively, eyes sparkling with mischief. 

“It’s a _very_ lucky pistol,” he murmured in a sing-song voice, not hiding the look of desire as his gaze honed in on Porthos’ lips. 

“You’re trouble, you are,” was all Porthos could manage.

“And you like that, don’t you?”

Porthos pointed at him and warned, “You shouldn’t flirt with danger,” then gave a laugh that sounded a tad too nervous as Aramis drifted even closer.

Wanting desperately to be kissed yet unable to allow himself to be the one to close the final gap between their lips, Porthos couldn’t help releasing a moan when Aramis finally stretched up and kissed him. 

Whatever resistance Porthos imagined he would put up to this inevitability dissipated as soon as he felt Aramis’ hands cupping his jaw, kissing him, tasting him, humming greedily with desire as he pressed against his body and let his longing be known.

When they eventually pulled apart, kissing once, twice, three times before the move was final, Porthos found he wasn’t the only one smiling shyly, bright-eyed and panting. 

“At last,” whispered Aramis, “Do you know how long I’ve …”

“Yeah, I do,” cut in Porthos, “I really, really do.”

They kissed again, slowly, exploring, changing angles, seeking more, and this time Porthos also let his hands roam around Aramis’ body, his hair, his jaw, he felt down the muscles of his shoulders, the dip at his waist and the curve of his buttocks. 

It was all good. 

It was all immensely desirable. 

When they drew apart Porthos felt a flutter of anticipation that only ever seemed to make itself known when Aramis was close. And now he could see the same hope and expectation mirrored in the face looking back up at him. Aramis glowed with the pure pleasure of being in his arms and however quickly or slowly this progressed from here, Porthos knew now, more than ever, that he wasn’t alone any more. 

But suddenly Aramis’ expression changed. His gaze flitted slightly to the left, over Porthos’ shoulder, then his dreamy expression abruptly changed into one of wide-eyed shock, then horror. 

“ _Marsac?_ Wait! _No!_ Porthos!”

And then the world faded to black.


	4. The Note

It didn’t seem unusual to float back to consciousness accompanied by Aramis’ voice. After all, Porthos had done that once before and he was awoken from sleep on many occasions by the sound of his friend urging him from slumber to get in early for breakfast or to attend to the horses or to make haste least they be late for duty. 

No, the sound of Aramis’ voice was not the unusual thing. It was the tone that was out of the ordinary. 

Pleading. An air of urgency. Of importance. Insistence. 

And the other voice, which Porthos didn’t recognise, fired back with just as much insistence but the tone was a jumble of dismissiveness, disdain, then soft, crooning coaxes. Seduction was the best word to describe it, but too soon after a response from Aramis the tone fell back to a sneering contempt. 

Shaking his head to try to make sense of actual words so he could better gauge what the conversation was about, and who the second speaker might be, Porthos hissed at the pain then pushed his head back hard into the pillow and groaned. 

“Porthos? _Porthos!”_

Hurried footsteps then the side of the bed depressed and a hand gripped his shoulder then another gently drew his own exploring fingers away from the top of his head. 

“No, no, _mon ami_ , you must not worry your wound. Rest now, be calm.”

Porthos viewed Aramis through a tiny slit between the lids of his right eye. 

“You be bloody calm,” he retorted gruffly, putting a hand over Aramis’ when he noted the worry on his face. 

Immediately another face appeared in his line of view behind Aramis. It was no-one Porthos recognised and he began to sit up with alarm but when the man spoke he knew it was the person he’d heard arguing with Aramis earlier. 

“We don’t have time to dally here playing nursemaids.”

“I wouldn’t have to do this if you hadn’t hit him in the first place,” Aramis ground out through gritted teeth, not turning his attention from the inspection of Porthos’ wound.

Porthos flicked his attention between Aramis and the man, confused. A strange, fruity sweet aroma made him sniff and when he caught sight of a single melon pip on Aramis’ collar, the memory of his birthday, the melon, the shot, the alley …. the kiss ….. _the kiss_ ….. oh the kiss ….came back to him with wide-eyed realisation. 

Aramis saw the look and sat back slightly. He tried to grin but his jaw was tense and his eyes lined and troubled. 

_The kiss._ Then ….then Aramis had looked over his shoulder and all the hope and desire had vanished because he’d seen something, someone, then just before the world went black for Porthos Aramis had called out a name.... 

Porthos stared over Aramis’ shoulder at the stranger.

“Marsac,” he murmured, his stomach lurching at the realisation. 

“Oh wonderful. Not only did you loiter until he regained consciousness, but back from the dead a complete stranger immediately knows who I am.”

_That tone again._

Porthos stared at Aramis, trying to get a hint of what was going on, but when the dark eyes met his briefly before they dropped away, all Porthos could see was a high level of stress and anxiety. 

“Aramis …” began Marsac, but he stopped when Aramis quickly stood and turned to face him, hands held out urging him to stop. 

“Not now.”

“Certainly, Aramis. Let’s wait until later, shall we? Let's pander to your special new friend and try not to think about my immediate prospects. Perhaps we could delay leaving until the King has been notified and I’m hanging at the end of a noose.”

_Leaving?_

Porthos propped himself up on an elbow and repeated his query aloud. 

“Who’s leaving?”

Marsac refused to answer or even look at him, merely fixed Aramis with a look that spoke of extreme frustration and disappointment. 

Aramis still had his back to Porthos but at Marsac’s look he threw his shoulders back and stared up at the ceiling, as if asking for divine guidance. 

“Marsac, I need to speak to Porthos alone.”

The look Aramis received was not pleasant.

“Sort this mess out before I have to do it for you,” Marsac growled.

“Get out!” 

Porthos waited. Aramis kept his expression hidden by way of continuing to keep his back to him. 

“Start speaking or I’m outta here,” Porthos demanded. 

Aramis turned to face him but there were no smiles or masks of pleasantries in his expression. 

“Porthos …. I can’t explain…. I didn’t know …”

“You’ll have to do better than that. What is it you can’t explain and what is it you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know Marsac was in Paris. I didn’t even know if he was still alive. And I can’t …. I can’t explain how all this makes me feel, having you caught up in this mess.”

Biting his top lip, Porthos narrowed his eyes and asked, “He said _‘we could delay leaving’_. _‘We’_ , not _‘I’_. Explain.”

“Marsac plans on sailing to England. He is meeting a contact outside Paris who will escort him down to a boat near Le Havre and from there he will sail to England and adopt a new identity.”

“What’s he gonna do in England?”

Aramis took a deep breath and shrugged in a hopeless manner. 

“Start afresh? Begin a new life? Try to find a way forward without the demons from Savoy haunting him?”

“An’ he’s gonna do this alone, is he?”

The moment Porthos saw Aramis’ expression he knew it was not the case and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. 

“Damn you to hell,” he snarled as Aramis once again turned away. “No, look at me, don’t you dare hide. He said _‘we’_ , meaning you and him, right? You’re goin’ with him to England, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It really isn’t. Either you’re goin’ with him or you’re not.”

“He wants me to.”

Anger and panic surged through Porthos, the loss already stabbing at his gut in a way he recognised with horrible familiarity. 

Cursing, Porthos tried to rise, intending to dress, put on his boots, grab his weapons and hightail it out of there in record speed. Unfortunately his body didn’t have quite the same agenda and as he stood up quickly the world went fuzzy then black and he felt himself fall and waited for the pain of hitting the ground to register. 

Instead there was another string of curses – this time not his own – and he was caught in strong arms and lowered awkwardly – but gently – back down to sitting on the bed.

Even before his sight returned to normal Porthos was shrugging Aramis off, fighting against the hands that tried to soothe him, but he didn’t move far away when Porthos succeeded, hovering next to him on the bed, face grim and stressed. 

“I said, fuck off,” growled Porthos, swinging a sharp punch in the direction where he hoped Aramis was sitting. 

“Porthos, we don’t have much time. I know how angry you must be with me, but I need you to listen to me.”

“No. I’m sick of listening to what you have to say. Soon as my head stops spinnin’ I’m going back to the garrison and you can go wherever the hell you want to go because I don’t care any more.”

“You don’t have to go back to the garrison yet.”

Porthos glanced angrily at the afternoon sun streaming in through the far window. 

“Like hell. I was due on duty early this morning. Treville’ll have me mucking out the stables and worse for weeks now that I’ve missed my orders.”

“He won’t. He knew not to expect you today.”

“Excuse me?” 

The words were polite but the way Porthos said them was anything but. He narrowed his eyes and snarled, “What have you done?”

Aramis shrank back into himself and hunched over, clearly dreading the consequences of all the explanations he was having to make today. 

“No-one can know that Marsac is here," he murmured, "He’s as good as dead if he’s found. When he hit you, it knocked you out cold. We took you here – it is a place where Madame Gebert has convalesced in the past and she and I have used it for ….well, anyway, I knew how to gain entry here and I knew it was safe and discreet. I sent word to Treville at sunup to explain that we’d only discovered yesterday that it was your birthday and that the import of it had led to much imbibing and merriment last night. And thus you had found yourself in a state much the worse for wear and not really conducive to attending to your duties today.”

“How dare you!”

This time Aramis rose and stepped back as Porthos lunged for him, furious. He held out his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“You will not suffer any punishment, trust me. We have all, at some point, overindulged and found ourselves unable to perform as well as we would like – or at all in some cases. It usually leads to punishments but birthdays are the one excuse Treville will accept for such laxity and as yours has such special meaning and because the celebration was so …. enthusiastic … I do believe he is now not expecting you to return to duties until the day after tomorrow.”

Mortified, Porthos could only stare at Aramis, open-mouthed. 

“You told him I needed two whole days off work just because I had a birthday?”

Aramis swallowed and knelt, shuffling forward, hands not touching Porthos, but grabbing the blanket on the side of the bed and scrunching it anxiously as he spoke.

“Please, Porthos, once I realised that Marsac was here I knew I needed you here so you could help me. You are truly injured, after all, but if you could find it in your heart to help me ….” 

The backhander from Porthos caught Aramis square on the jaw and sent him flying back onto the cold stone floor. There was little satisfaction in it for Porthos, just a grim realisation about how low their relationship had fallen. 

Raising his head and wiping some blood from the corner of his mouth, Aramis took a moment before meeting Porthos’ eyes. There were no tears but the strain he was feeling was clear to see. He, in turn, studied Porthos and must have seen the same burden of pain there, for he crawled up to the side of the bed again and this time put a timid hand on Porthos’ arm. 

“I didn’t plan this, Porthos. I didn’t know that Marsac had returned. Please, you must believe me.”

“Whether I believe you or not doesn’t change where we stand now.”

“I know. I know.” Aramis hesitated and dropped his gaze then added quietly, “But I need your help. It can only be you.”

When Porthos didn’t respond, Aramis continued. 

“I need you to accompany me … to … to the rendezvous in the morning.”

Porthos was incredulous. “You gotta be kiddin’ me?” 

“If I never ask another thing of you, please grant me this plea.”

“No way. No way in hell am I gonna go with you … oh, and it won’t just be you alone, will it? You seriously want me to go with you … and _him_ …. and stand there on the sidelines like a forlorn cuckold while you two lovebirds traipse off to sail away to sunny England together.” 

“It isn’t like that.”

“I’m pretty sure it is and why would you need me to go with you, anyway? Why would two seasoned musketeers need me to protect them?”

“I don’t need your protection, but I do need you to come with me.”

“I’m gonna humour you and pretend I might tag along, just so you can explain to me exactly why it’s so fucking important that I go with you.”

“I don’t know why. It just is. I can’t do this without you.”

“You’re a selfish ass, Aramis, you know that?”

Aramis actually nodded at that, but didn’t relent with his wish and looked up at Porthos imploringly. 

“Please. If I never ask anything else of you, please come with me.”

“Stop saying please. Stop with … _everything!_ God, I'm such a fool. Why would you need me to go with you? What could I possibly have to offer you now? I have nothing left, nothing at all, and the only way you could possibly hurt me more is if you were to physically rip my heart out and stomp on it.”

Aramis let go of his arm and crumpled down onto his knees then folded his head down into his hands and gripped his hair tight. He made no sound, but his whole body shook with tension. 

Porthos shook his head in disgust and swung his feet off the bed, waited until his balance seemed secure, then grabbed his hat, rose and turned to leave. 

He was departing back to the garrison. 

His feet were definitely carrying him out the door. 

There was no way he was going to be suckered into staying. 

Yet despite all his best intentions, somehow, instead of walking across the room and departing through the door and leaving the source of all his grief behind, he found himself dropping to the floor next to Aramis and when he could bear the sight of silent sobbing no longer he settled a large hand on a trembling shoulder. 

“Breathe, damn you. Just breathe.”

And as the sobs finally broke Porthos cursed himself and cupped his hand around Aramis’ neck, then cursed Aramis a few more times and finally said quietly, “I’ll come with you but after I do this, we’re done.”

 

\--------------------

 

When Porthos first laid eyes on Marsac he would deny it was hate at first sight. But it was hard to ever deny that it was anything much less than utter, intense, loathing. 

To know that he had abandoned his brothers, abandoned Aramis and to have come back for him now of all times … as Aramis stared at Marsac with a look of total trust and fondness Porthos had to turn away but couldn’t stop his hands from clenching into fists, nor his stomach from lurching with disgust and …. loss? 

For that was what it really felt like. He was losing Aramis, not to someone worthy, but to someone who stood for everything Porthos despised. Disloyal, dishonourable, a coward and a traitor, that’s what Marsac was, yet Aramis had barely been able to take his eyes off him from the moment the deserter skulked back into his life. 

Maybe that wasn’t totally true. Perhaps the truth was filtered through his own jealous eyes and there weren’t as many adoring looks as he imagined and it seemed not be total devotion if the sounds of yelling in the reception room next door indicated the real truth.

It was late. Porthos was tired but couldn’t sleep. Marsac had re-entered the room unannounced at some point and had immediately adopted a waspish tone with Aramis and no tone whatsoever with Porthos, as he made every effort to ignore him. 

From the shouting now, it seemed very much as if Marsac was almost as unhappy about Porthos escorting them to the rendezvous as Porthos was. 

There was a grim satisfaction in hearing jealousy such as his own mirrored in Marsac’s tones. 

But the words Marsac used when he spoke to Aramis were not ones Porthos could ever use himself with any clear conscience. He could think them, he could plan on saying them in a moment of bitterness, to cause pain, to seek revenge, but in reality, Porthos was not a man who could carry out hurtful manipulation of another’s emotions. 

And that was the crux of his issue with Marsac. As Porthos listened to the back and forth between Aramis and Marsac he heard the manipulation and he knew Aramis would fall for the bitter words. Marsac was a man who could look at you and immediately cut straight through to your deepest insecurities, then wring out every last bit of self-doubt and confidence with his bare hands until you begged him to tell you how to act, how to be. 

He heard it now with Aramis and it made him feel sick. 

“Do you hate me so deeply, Aramis?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t hate you!”

“You can’t love me or else why would you torture me so?”

“I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I just want you to accept that I need Porthos to come with us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why.”

“You’re lying. You’ve always been a liar. I don’t know how I put up with your treachery.”

“You don’t understand what he’s done for me. When I returned from Savoy I ….”

“Oh, I don’t understand Savoy? Suddenly, that giant oaf is the only one who does? A man who wasn’t even a musketeer when it happened? Was nowhere near the massacre, unlike me, who dragged your sorry carcass away from danger, me, who killed three men who otherwise would have hacked you to death.” There was the sound of a fist splintering wood and the door shook. “You think so little of me, who you claim to love, who rescued you from a fate worse than hell, yet you pander to that dumb halfwit as if he’s your devoted hound, tagging along waiting for a kind word and a pat from you.”

“Stop it. Don’t speak of Porthos like that.”

“Who else knows you well enough to call out your games? It makes me sick to see you sway him so with your false promises and lies. To see you imagining that bestowing a kiss on your lovesick dog will make him overlook the type of faulted individual you really are. He’ll find out, Aramis, and once he does, he’ll abandon you. He wouldn’t think you worthy of dragging out of a massacre in the snow.”

“Marsac, enough! 

Fist on flesh was clear to hear and Marsac didn’t hide the groan of pain. Porthos liked to imagine that Aramis had belted him a good one and wiped the smarmy look off his face once and for all. 

But there was another groan. One of remorse and regret. 

“Marsac, I’m sorry.”

“You always did have a vile temper.”

“I’m so sorry. Come here.”

“ _Arghh_. Leave it.”

“Marsac. Let me see.”

“You say you love me yet you always make me bruise.”

“Marsac ….”

Porthos hadn’t liked hearing them fighting but he hated the thought of sitting around listening to them making up. As he couldn’t leave via the door, he decided to depart through the window into the night, which required some physical dexterity he didn’t know he possessed, but it was amazing what the determination to flee could prompt you to achieve. 

 

\------------------------

 

The moon was high in the sky, not full, but bright, trying to find its way through the uncertainty of the clouds. The night drew down misty and cold. The first snow of winter was not far off, the wind whipping up a chill to cool the blood, if not yet freeze the bones. 

Porthos sat on the back of a rickety old cart, mulling his misfortunes and his mis-reading of the object of his affection. 

‘Damn Marsac,’ he thought, not for the first time on this short trip. But then if the appearance of one man, on one day, could rip Aramis away from him so thoroughly then what chance did Porthos have of holding his affections anyway? 

“I wondered if you’d left me already,” said Aramis, approaching from the alley behind Madame Gebert’s abode, wrapping his cloak around his shoulders and settling beside Porthos on the edge of the cart. He shivered overdramatically and rubbed his hands together but Porthos could see the genuine concern for the weather as the warmer seasons gave way to winter once again. 

“I’m guessing you heard much of our conversation?”

“Seemed more like an argument than a friendly chat.”

“Marsac is …. understandably tense. He hasn’t had the good fortune to have someone look after him, as I have.” 

Porthos felt his whole body tighten and a muscle jumped in his jaw as he tried to form the right words. 

“He’s your lover and your best friend. You’ll be able to take care of _all_ his needs from now on, won’t you?”

Aramis huffed beside him. “Past tense on both accounts. You’re my best fr…..”

“You and I are friends – _sometimes_ \- but I wouldn’t necessarily call us best friends,” interrupted Porthos stiffly. 

Jutting his chin out at Aramis’ challenging stare of disbelief, Porthos held his nerve and stared back, expression stony and grim. 

Aramis kept staring but nodded and seemed to acknowledge something to himself. 

“Fine,” he said, gesturing at Porthos and rising to stand and face him, “I’ve treated you badly, you’re hurt and now you’re trying to throw it back at me. I fully understand.” When no response came he took a further step forward then continued, “But Porthos you _are_ my best friend. I’m closer to you than anyone, despite our short history …"

“We ain’t lovers though. Not like you are with him.”

“We kissed.”

“Last time I checked a quick peck and fumble up an alleyway doesn’t class two people as lovers.” 

“It was more than that.”

Porthos shrugged and made a face. 

“Maybe to you it was.”

Aramis shifted his weight on to one leg and planted his hands firmly on his hips, passive demeanour finally cracking as irritation took its place. 

“I know enough about these things to understand perfectly well that I want you and you want me equally as much.”

“Is that right?”

Aramis nodded then moved forward, reaching to touch Porthos’ arm, but he was deflected by a large outstretched hand as Porthos batted him away and slid off the cart, stepping away. 

“No, you don’t ever get to try that on me again. You may have caught me at a weak moment last night but that's not gonna be repeated.”

“I’m trying to explain….”

“Save it. Your actions tell me all I need to know. Now that your … _lover_ … is back, any other temporary fancy gets pushed to the side while you simper over Marsac, even when he treats you with complete disdain.”

“You don’t understand …”

“Yeah, I do, I really, really do. I understand only too well how this plays out and my biggest regret is that I fell for it rather than trusting my instincts to walk away as soon as I’d performed the simple task Treville set for me. _‘Watch him,’_ he said. He didn’t say to help you or let you sleep in my bed, he didn’t tell me to become friends with you or bare my soul to you or let you wheedle your way into here!” 

Porthos leaned forward and roughly thumped his chest, spitting out the last word with bitter venom. 

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. Always my mistake for not seeing friendships and affections for what they really are and always bein’ the one who ends up hurt and alone. Too trustin’, they say and they’re right. I should never have let my guard down for someone with such flimsy loyalties.” 

Aramis’ eyes lit with a dark fury.

“Flimsy loyalties?” Porthos went to interrupt him again but Aramis stepped forward and poked him in the chest, anger building. “Loyalties are why I’m in this mess, frozen here between the two of you. I didn’t know Marsac was going to show up, nor did I kiss you because you are some fleeting fancy who I’ll barely remember in the morn.”

“Yeah, well, the morn is nearly here and it won’t be long before we’ll both be able to forget this whole sorry thing between us.”

“Porthos, wait.”

“Stop tellin’ me what to do.” Porthos sighed and halted but didn’t turn around. 

“I’m going to say one last thing, Porthos. Then I promise I won’t ask anything more of you. In a few hours we’ll be leaving for the meeting point. I honestly don’t know what is going to happen. I know what you think will happen and I know what Marsac expects to happen, but I have no idea what will be when we reach the coach.”

Porthos didn’t turn but he knew Aramis had moved closer behind him. 

“My friend – for you are _definitely_ my friend – I have been listening to Marsac’s opinion on this all day and night and I know exactly what he wants from me. And I know you’re livid and disappointed with me and it breaks my heart, but Porthos, I want …. _need_ ….you to tell me what I should do. I need to hear it from you and if you tell me I’ll never ask this of you ever again. Please, tell me what your heart wants me to do.”

As Porthos stood, still as stone, a single cold flake of snow fluttered down and rested on the tip of his nose. 

Porthos closed his eyes and took himself back to another place and time where snowflakes settled on his skin late into the night and Aramis stood near him, anxious and lost. 

This time, Porthos wiped the flake off his nose and stomped back inside the house without a word. 

 

\---------------------------

 

Having barely slept at all, Porthos rose and prepared his horse well before Aramis and Marsac were awake. Nobody had spoken again once he went back inside late in the night. They each retired quickly, occupying separate bunks, Aramis silent and withdrawn, and even Marsac remained quiet, although more than once Porthos had looked up to see him watching both of them with a sullen expression lit by moonlight. 

Now, it was time. He fortified his plans in his head and stomped back into the room, unconcerned about the noise he made, which was enough to make Marsac roll out of his bunk and glare at him before departing to tend to his horse. Aramis rose but didn’t look at Porthos and left for the stables without a word. 

Porthos took a deep breath. It was nearly all over. He would keep his promise to accompany Aramis to the rendezvous point, then he would turn and leave without a word and return to Paris. He may yet confess to Treville about what had occurred. Not the kiss of course and not his feelings for Aramis, but of Marsac’s appearance, the hit on the head, the request to accompany Aramis to the point of his flight to England with Marsac. Then he would accept whatever punishment Treville deemed necessary and if allowed he would throw himself into his duties and become the best, most decorated, most loyal and trustworthy musketeer ever to roam Paris. Nothing would stop him and nothing would distract him ever again. 

As he moved to leave the room Porthos halted, shifted, then halted again. 

_Damn him for hesitating_.

The thought of Aramis with Marsac, riding off in the carriage with Marsac, sailing with Marsac, starting a new life with Marsac, it was almost all too much to bear. 

_In his arms._

__

__

Holding him. 

Kissing him. 

_Forever._

He went to move again but as he bent to lift his saddlebag a flash of blue caught his eye from within. 

Porthos found himself sinking down on his knees, staring at the strip of blue material in his bag. He pulled it out and held it, stroked it, lifted it to his face and kissed it and closed his eyes to try to remember as fully as possible the woman who had wrapped him in this cloth as a baby. It had served many purposes. Swaddling tots, a shawl for special occasions, a table cloth once for his fourth birthday feast which consisted of the very little his sick and dying mother had managed to scrounge together. And later, after she had gone to the earth, it had served as the comfort he clutched to his chest and cried into on the long nights when he missed his mother with such devastation he thought his heart would break. 

And now, it was well worn, despite the tender care Porthos bestowed on it. Holes became tears which then became rips until one piece of cloth became many. Porthos had kept them all for a long while, but when he left the Court to seek his future elsewhere, soldiering, he had left a single blue strip of cloth – a piece of him and his past - at his mother’s grave. 

Now, he held one of the other strips of precious blue material in his hands and felt another sort of desperation. A loss, different, but welling up to a similar kind of desolation. The bitter sting of the loss of a loved one, never to be seen again. 

Porthos knew he was a stupid, sentimental fool. His heart could be broken just as easily as he could snap the bones of an opponent’s arm if the whim so took him.

He knew it was a hollow token and a symbol that no-one – especially Aramis now – would care to understand the importance of. Yet as he tucked a strip of the material in the side pocket of the ridiculously ornate bag on Aramis’ bunk he couldn’t help shedding a tear for the part of himself he was leaving here. He had hoped it would be his future, but now it was just another shredded part of his past. 

A ridiculous, thankless gesture acknowledged by nobody and nothing but his own maudlin heart. 

 

\--------------------------------

 

On the dusty road back to Paris the sun seemed unfairly bright, illuminating all of Porthos’ deepest regrets and fears, and the dull heat of the day mixed with his exhaustion made him shrug his doublet open and loosen the ties on his shirt when all he really wanted was to wrap himself tightly in a shroud of wool and self-pity. 

He was a musketeer. He had a place in the garrison. He could hold his head up high and parade proudly in front of the world, but his heart, his big, expansive, open heart, felt mutilated and stomped on. Ridiculous really, to feel so torn apart over the loss of a recent friendship and the promise of a future based purely on a vigil in a courtyard and culminating in nothing more than a single drunken kiss in a dark alley. 

The sound of a horse approaching behind him made him straighten, shoulders tensing as the rider came into view at his side. 

A short, stocky man dressed in a well-worn jacket and mis-matched breeches doffed his hat as he broke into a trot to move past Porthos. He didn’t dally. Nobody adorned with the amount of weapons Porthos carried was worth lingering around. 

On any normal day, Porthos would be glancing behind him, scanning the landscape all around, testing his sight on the long road behind for signs of approaching riders who might present a problem or a threat. 

Not today. 

Porthos had made too many mistakes lately. After he’d hidden the blue sash in Aramis’ saddlebag he’d mounted his horse and remained silent for the three hours it took to reach the crossroads from the outskirts of Paris. He’d not said a word the whole journey. Marsac had, addressing Aramis often and with growing optimism and clear excitement, but Aramis remained silent and tense and refused to be drawn into conversation. 

When Marsac spied the coach waiting for them at the crossroads he had ridden ahead, urging haste from Aramis so they could begin their journey and their new life.

That signalled the end for Porthos and as he turned his horse around he’d met Aramis’ eyes. He saw heartbreak there, echoing his own, but he knew Aramis had made his choice, despite lingering now, so there was no point hesitating. 

Reaching the top of the hill overlooking the plain, Porthos had given in to masochism and turned for one last look. He saw a couple of distant figures milling around the coach, then one that was clearly Aramis pulling Marsac around the back of the coach to pull him close and then draw him into a private kiss. It was long, it was intimate, and Porthos knew it was loving, and it confirmed every last dark conclusion which Porthos had reached in his most pessimistic moments. 

With a curt nod, Porthos then turned and began the long ride back to begin his future alone. 

Now he couldn’t afford to look back, literally or otherwise. He’d continue on towards Paris, taking his time in order to settle on one of the many explanations he could give to Treville, all with some or no element of truth to them, then he’d resume his service and blinker himself to any and all distractions. He’d never fall from his path of reserve again, he’d learn a greater measure of dispassion and lock his natural, nurturing, protective instincts away. Never again would anybody be able to pick apart his heart.

Another sound behind him made him start again. A horse, but also the clunky rumble of a cart and he slowed to let it rattle past, to no acknowledgement from the farmer urging the old nag forward. 

The sun was reaching her peak in the sky and well over a dozen horses, carts and riders had overtaken Porthos on the road in the past hour as he ambled along, in no hurry to reach the garrison and have to answer a string of painful questions from Treville. There was no drama here on the road now. No moments of alarm or threat to break Porthos from the dull ache of loss as he plodded along. In fact there was nothing in particular at all that should have caused the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention, except the innate instincts that had aided Porthos so well over the years and which now told him that something behind him was worth paying attention to. 

He didn't turn but he separated the noises behind him, sifting out the sounds of the birds chirping and squawking and chasing each other through the trees, the distant pathetic cries of a newborn lamb, the chatter of two ladies tending to the field to his right, the rolling pull and tug of the large hay cart in the distance which had passed in the other direction not a few minutes ago. 

In there, amongst all those noises was the steady plod of horse behind him. That in itself was not unusual but Porthos was aware of the fact that in having reached earshot of him the horse – and presumably its rider – had now adopted the exact same excruciatingly slow pace as him and was making no attempt at all to either catch up or pass him.

His own horse had flicked up its ears some time ago and now snorted and tossed its head restlessly. 

From behind came an answering equine snuffle and Porthos waited but there was no subsequent increase in pace. Just the same gentle clip clop matching close to his own.

A traitorous, hopeful thought weaselled around in the back of his mind, despite his best efforts to quell it, but he refused to turn in his saddle to satisfy his insistence about who it wasn’t. 

For two more hours Porthos rode, steadily, stubbornly staring straight ahead, not once allowing himself the luxury of either confirming or denying who the rider was behind him by simply turning his head to check. 

It was only as the familiar outskirts of Paris came into view that Porthos let himself take a deep, bracing breath and slowed his tired horse to a halt. 

He still didn’t turn his head, but he waited, shoulders back, chin defiantly raised, apparently scanning the outline of Paris but really turning every single sense to the rider who slowly moved his horse up level to stop beside him. 

Porthos still refused to look to the side and he felt his brow draw down as the silence continued. Finally, he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck and when he spoke it was in a low, surprisingly soft tone.

“You found my note then?”

“I did. It fell on the ground when I drew out the lovely blue sash you left me.”

Porthos nodded, still holding back, still not willing to believe who was beside him. When he finally spoke again his voice was gruff with emotion.

“You asked me to tell you what I wanted you to do, so I did. And I want you to know that I feel like I lost a part of me for writing that note. I don’t beg. I don’t ask anyone for anything and I never, ever ask anyone to stay with me, ‘cos I know that’s just inviting loss and abandonment and resentment and I’ve already wasted too many years tryin’ to rid my life of those feelings.

“I’m here, Porthos.”

Porthos paused before turning, then exhaled as he studied Aramis, the expression looking back at him almost matching the grimness of his own.

“You kissed him.”

Aramis bit his lip at the accusation.

“I was saying goodbye,” he said, then added softly, “That was my past leaving on the coach, not my future.”

“That whole situation was a complete fuck up.”

“I know.”

“You had no right to drag me into that.”

“Porthos, I’m sorry.”

Glaring, Porthos leaned to his right and jabbed an accusatory finger at Aramis. 

“Sorry’s not good enough. You could’ve gone off and sorted all of that out with your lover and let me be.”

“What would you have me do? When he hit you on the head should I have left you there to bleed out in that stinking alley?”

“That would’ve been better than draggin’ me along to watch you simpering after him.”

“I didn’t simper.”

There was a tone of petulance in his voice and Porthos turned to continue his long list of complaints, but found Aramis had leaned forward and dropped his head down onto the mane of his horse, hiding his face and his feelings.

And as Aramis bent forward and the back of his doublet rode up, Porthos felt his heart skip a beat as he caught sight of a flash of familiar blue material wrapped around Aramis’ waist, secured in place by his belt.

A pang of something he fervently wished to deny itched in his chest and he turned his head back to Paris and waited for Aramis – and now himself – to regain some composure. 

Eventually, going against his vow to not get involved with any discussion regarding Marsac, Porthos said quietly, but firmly, “He was all wrong for you.” 

Aramis straightened and looked at him, but Porthos kept his gaze directed at Paris as he spoke.

“I saw how he treated you, how he spoke to you. It made me so mad to see you accepting that sort of behaviour.”

“You saw someone in a high state of stress and tension. If you’d met Marsac in another situation, in other circumstances …”

“I’d have hated him then too,” stated Porthos. 

“Because he held my affection?”

Porthos glared at Aramis. 

“Don’t push your luck. I’m savage at you and I will be for the foreseeable future.” 

Despite the warning, something eased in Aramis’ expression and they both stared into the distance for a while, watching the trickle of carts and horses and wanderers threading into and out of Paris. 

When Aramis finally spoke it was in a wistful tone.

“You never forget a first love, a first real, adult relationship. The first time someone looks at you and you realise that their stomach is twisting with emotion in an equal fashion to yours. The first time you feel giddy just because they smile at you. The way they can make your skin shiver with the most delicate of touches.”

“Fucking hell. Now you’re gonna talk to me about his touches? If he’s that bloody precious to you why’d you let him go then?”

“Because one day you meet someone and it stops being all about you and you realise it’s all about them. You want to take away their pain when they’re hurting. To soothe them when their memories furrow their brow. You’ll do anything to make them smile because it makes the sun come out and when their fabulous laugh bursts forth you know the entire world stops to listen and is an infinitely better place.”

Porthos knew Aramis was staring at him now, waiting for him to speak, but he couldn’t formulate anything coherent so merely huffed and turned his head away.

Aramis sighed. 

“When you have to choose between an old love and a new love, sometimes it isn’t really a choice because your heart knows full well where it lies.”

“I’m not your love,” insisted Porthos, but he had to turn his head away even further to hide his conflicting feelings.

“Maybe not fully, not yet,” Aramis admitted, “But I can tell that you could be. Will be. If my transgressions can be excused?” 

Porthos kept his gaze averted and heard Aramis sigh again. 

“You are wrong about Marsac, Porthos. He has a manner about him, a sourness when he is displeased or put out. I’m not so blind as to not notice it, but he did love me, does love me, despite all my faults and foibles. And you may not want to hear it but I loved him too, despite his jealousies and the sharpness of his tongue. Then came Savoy. Marsac abandoned me that morning in the forest, but only after he saved me. He’ll never be a coward in my eyes because I understand the utter hopelessness of that situation. How it tore my soul apart to sit there with those bodies. How I replay my execution of that young soldier every single night….”

Porthos made to protest but Aramis held up a hand of calm. 

“However we choose to describe it, ultimately I did end the life of a brother. I will never be fully at peace with it but I accept now that there was nothing but mercy in my resolve. You helped me see that.”

Aramis slowly dismounted and walked stiffly around his mare, stroking her neck gently with one hand as he passed and greeting Porthos’ horse with a ruffle of her neck as he stood and looked up, trying to make eye contact for what he had to say.

“My relationship with Marsac was intense, but far from perfect. The benefits it held for me ebbed and waned at the best of times and passion sometimes overcame my better judgement. Savoy drew a line, a definite line. I knew that and even though I felt Marsac’s loss greatly, if he had never abandoned me, if he’d returned to Paris with me, I doubt either of us would have been able to comfort the other. It would have been pain consoled by pain.”

Aramis took a step in and put a hand on Porthos’ leg. 

“Please look at me, my friend.”

Doing his best to stay composed, Porthos begrudgingly did as he was asked. 

“I asked you to come accompany me to the crossroads with Marsac because I needed you by my side. I think I knew before I left Paris that I would not sail away to England with him. I knew I would have this long ride back to the garrison. I knew I would be lonely and sad and wistful. And yes, I knew you would be outraged and angry at me for asking for your loyalty in such a situation.”

“Damn right,” muttered Porthos, but he kept looking at Aramis and saw a small smile curl his lips in response to his reaction. 

“I needed you with me because if I’d gone to the crossroads alone there was a chance – a small one – that I would have been influenced by Marsac – against my better judgement and the wishes of my heart – and that he’d have managed to cajole me into leaving with him.” Aramis smiled and squeezed Porthos’ knee. “I’m not blind to the fact that he knows how to manipulate my emotions. I needed you with me to remind me of what I’d be leaving behind. Your goodness, the way you only have my best intentions in mind. The way you make me laugh and feel blessed every time I see your smile. I needed you with me because everything feels right when you’re by my side. It doesn’t matter whether I’m sad, or angry or happy …. or a lunatic,” he added, smiling wider this time, “When you’re with me, I can take whatever the world throws at me and I’m complete.”

Aramis fiddled with the sash under his doublet and produced a note. He unfolded it and held it up to Porthos with a smile. 

“When I taught you to write it was because I knew you might need to send an important note to someone at the garrison. I didn’t ever imagine that it would be me who would receive such a note or that it would say something so important.”

“I only wrote one word.”

“Stay.” Aramis turned the note and read it again, as if disbelieving his luck. “It says _‘Stay’_ , and that was all I needed to hear.

Porthos had to chew his lip to keep his expression neutral against the sincerity of Aramis’ words and the hopeful look when he raised his face again. 

“Don’t think you can turn my head with sweet talk and pretty words,” he grumbled. 

The hopeful expression faded briefly but then returned in force as Aramis made a point of tucking the note under the blue sash and adjusting his belt to secure it, then he patted Porthos' knee again and suggested brightly, “Perhaps we can continue this discussion in the tavern, after we’ve fed and rested our horses at the garrison?”

“Stop touching my leg and get back on your horse,” commanded Porthos, barely hiding a smile as Aramis turned and scampered around his mare to mount back up. He summoned a scowl again as Aramis drew up the reins and gifted him with a blinding smile. 

“There’ll be none of that either. You’re still a long way from bein’ in my favour.”

“But you’ll forgive me soon, I can tell,” asserted Aramis, tipping his hat in deference and progressing forward, this time riding next to Porthos. 

Porthos just huffed, but then he stopped suddenly and straightened, a movement that made Aramis halt and turn back, looking at him quizzically. 

Taking off his hat, Porthos took time to straighten his bandana, re-fit the hat, flick up the collar on his doublet and adjust his belt. He felt ready for Paris. Ready again to throw himself into life as a musketeer. Secretly ready to explore everything that life – and Aramis – had to offer. 

But there remained one thing he had to set straight before he could continue. 

“I’m only gonna say this once and you need to hear it and hold it as the truth. In that note, I asked you to stay. I’m never, ever gonna ask that of you again. I’m not gonna say it, not gonna write it. If you ever leave me again I won’t look for any words to bring you back. I swear that on my mother’s grave. Promise me you understand.”

Aramis regarded Porthos solemnly then put a hand over his heart and said, “Your words chill me, my friend, but I understand.”

Nodding, Porthos began to move forward. 

“And stop calling me your friend.”

“But you are!” exclaimed Aramis, moving to trot beside him.

“You got a lot of grovelling to do before you can call me that.”

“Angels weep to hear you say such harsh things.”

“Told ya, quit with the fancy talk.”

“You wound me, my frie ….my Porthos.”

“I’m not your bloody Porthos.”

“Ah yes, not in your current mood, but as I hypothesised before, I do believe you very soon will be.”

“That’s optimistic, even for you.”

“Rubbish. Look at our short history together. We’ve been through so much and yet here we are, still side by side, returning to Paris, ready to resume our commission and anything else we might wish to resume ….”

_*silence*_

“… I was referring to our kiss, you know.”

“I know what you were referring to but I’m choosing to ignore you now.”

“Well, kisses, actually. Because we have kissed twice.”

“That first one definitely doesn’t count. You only did it to get rid of me.”

“Perhaps, but it gave me an idea of what was to come.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not kissing you any time soon. Your lips have been on Marsac’s only this morning, remember? I don’t wanna taste any part of him when I kiss you.”

“Ahh, so you _are_ planning on kissing me?”

“If you can remain completely quiet between now and when we reach the garrison, and then if you can do nothing to annoy me or make me want to throttle you for the foreseeable future, and if you can not ever mention Marsac ever again and promise me you’ll be on your best behaviour for the rest of your life …. I might think about it.”

“Fair enough. I’m used to paying penance for my wrongdoings. But soon, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“In the meantime, perhaps you can tell me the significance of this beautiful blue sash.”

 

\--------------------------

 

Epilogue. 

Many years later – on the return to Paris from the monastery at Douai. 

 

Aramis spent the whole long journey back to Paris riding behind Porthos. He knew this was reminiscent of their return from the crossroads, all those years earlier, after he watched Marsac and his past head off to sail away to a new life. 

Porthos had shunned him in Douai, rejecting his choice to live a monk's life, then briefly interacted with him in the fight to keep the munitions from the Spanish. He’d even laughed with him, punched his shoulder in jest, in the aftermath. It had seemed for a moment as if this return was going to be far less icy than the first one. 

But after his decision to return to Paris he noticed Porthos withdraw back into himself again, anticipating how he would return to the fold and into the arms of his brothers. Aramis saw the hard set of Porthos' jaw, his back rigid and unyielding, shoulders set for a fight. He knew this was not going to be easy and he knew to let Porthos set and keep the mood for now.

Not for the first time today Aramis found Athos staring at him, giving him a wry smile from where he rode beside him.

“You’ll work it out,” he said quietly. “Nobody can dismantle Porthos’ air of calm like you can, but nor can anybody else find a way to soothe him quite like you do.”

“I fear my powers of persuasion have deserted me, such is my contriteness.”

“Be patient. It will happen.”

Aramis merely nodded and kept plodding on, formulating a plan that consisted of nothing more than what he was already doing – being patient and silent and waiting and trying not to miss any of the signals which would tell him when Porthos was ready to deal with him. 

He loved and knew all his brothers but it was Porthos whose quirks and foibles and mannerisms and moods he read the best. 

Being quick to anger, it had taken Aramis some considerable time to understand and identify the slow burning fury that resided in Porthos. Rage in battle was one thing. It was instant and reactive and fuelled by the moment. But the kind of wrath and resentment Porthos was capable of took a long while to build and did not disappear when everyone sheathed their swords and turned back to their battle positions. 

Porthos’ back, his refusal to engage with his brothers, his fierce stare at the path ahead, his silence to all as they rode, told Aramis everything he needed to know about his mood. He’d seen it when Porthos had learned about his night with the Queen and his fathering of the Dauphin. He’d seen it when Porthos knew Treville was lying to him and when he found out the truth about his father. He’d certainly seen it when he’d returned to Paris after Marsac had left for England. Whenever the lies and deceptions Aramis told to protect himself were revealed, Porthos took the deception very, very personally and playing the lies over and over in his head only increased his rage and resentment. 

There had been no lies here. He’d not made the same mistake as he had when Marsac had asked him to sail away with him, only telling Porthos half-truths and skirting around his intentions. Aramis had been honest and open about his departure to Douai, even though he hadn’t discussed his plans beforehand. But how could he have?

“Just talk to him! Be gentle.” d’Artagnan had urged when they had stopped for the night at an inn to rest the horses and their weary bodies. But this required more than the skills of conversation. Porthos required patience to reach the right conclusions about his contriteness and patience Aramis would have for as long as he had to have it.

 

\---------------------------

 

It took four days before Porthos even so much as looked at Aramis. Then suddenly Aramis’ door opened and in stepped Porthos, uninvited and unannounced but solemn and purposeful in his manner. Aramis sat up straighter and put down his book. 

Porthos fixed him with dark, emotion-filled eyes. 

“Told you a long time ago that if I was ever gonna beg someone to stay with me I’d only do it once.”

“I remember.”

“You broke my heart again when you left for Douai. In the years past I almost taught myself to despise you.”

Aramis swallowed heavily and despite his vow to let Porthos speak without questions he rose and asked quietly, “Can you bring yourself to forgive me?”

There wasn’t an immediate answer, but Porthos eventually straightened and studied Aramis, his gaze now direct and thoughtful. His approach was stiff and formal, then he took the last step forward and cradled Aramis’ face in his hands, raising his lips to kiss Aramis’ forehead. He kept his lips there then began to speak, low and sad. 

“I hated everything ‘bout you being in that monastery. Hated you bein’ away from me, hated not knowin’ how you were, hated not bein’ certain ‘bout who was mindin’ my back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, I’ve been waitin’ four years to offload my thoughts and you don’t get to sweep them away with one of your _‘sorrys’_.”

He drew back to see Aramis’ expression, to ensure he understood, then he kissed the tip of his nose and ran his fingers back through the dark curls, holding the hair back in a firm grip with one hand, tilting Aramis’ face so they were close but not touching. 

“I can’t tell you how much I hated that you left me.”

“It wasn’t about leaving you,” protested Aramis, despite the grip tightening on his hair and a hand curling around his jaw. “It was about protecting all the people I care about.”

Porthos moved a thumb up over Aramis’ lips and pressed them together. 

“I said _shhhhhh_.”

Aramis was quiet now, but his eyes followed Porthos intently as a kiss was placed on his cheek and the thumb stroked gently across his bottom lip. 

“My world became much darker when you left me. And I know why you did it, I do. I know your reasons and I know how devastated you were, blamin’ yourself for things getting’ out of control, but Aramis, you still left me. That’s what it all comes down to for me. You broke my heart and you left me.”

His thumb brushed across the lips again then Porthos closed the short distance and bent to bestow on them a long, chaste kiss. When he drew back Aramis’ breath hitched and his eyes widened with realisation and shone with fearful tears as Porthos stepped away. 

“Porthos, don’t. Not like this. Please.”

“If I let you back in then I’ll always be wondering when you’ll leave me again.”

“Porthos, no! Please …”

 

\----------------------------

 

For a very large, loud, well-decorated man, Porthos could be deceptively elusive and hard to find when he wished it to be so. Aramis once again cursed the Court skills that left him one step behind and frustrated in his search. 

It was well after midnight when he returned to the garrison. Aramis had checked in more than once and had Athos and d’Artagnan on the alert as well but they had long since retired to bed - certain of Porthos' well-being if not his capacity to immediately forgive Aramis - when he trudged through the arch into the courtyard. 

Everything in the courtyard was grey and shadowed under the moonlit sky, including the large man sitting silent and still on the long bench in front of the stairs.

Aramis stopped dead and heard himself exhale heavily. 

After a brief moment of relief there was a sudden surge of adrenalin. Anticipation, excitement, fear all vied for a place in Aramis’ thumping chest as he calmed his expression and his movements and made his way in a nonchalant fashion over to the bench. 

Porthos didn’t look at him, but he nodded to himself and clasped and clenched his hands as Aramis approached. 

Dipping his head to compose himself, Aramis looked askance at Porthos when he made no attempt to speak. 

“I know I’ve riled you. More than that, I’ve hurt and upset you. I heard what you had to say and I took it to heart, I did, but now it’s my turn to speak. You saw me when I left for Douai. I went wearing my uniform and carried no bag or personal possessions apart from my hat and my weapons. I went to serve God, to pay my penance. I needed no other worldly goods. However there was one personal item I took with me because it remains my most precious treasure and I could not bear to leave it behind.”

Aramis reached inside his doublet and pulled out a slightly worn and worse for wear piece of paper. He handed it to Porthos, who received it with a puzzled frown that only lifted when he opened the note and read it. 

_Stay_

“You kept it?”

Porthos couldn’t keep the wonder out of his voice. 

“I mean, I knew you wore the sash when you left for Douai, but you really kept the note?”

“Always. It says everything I need to hear.”

“All these years.”

This time it was Porthos whose eyes glistened with tears he tried hard to hide and hold back his emotions. 

“I can’t do this,” he said, head shaking as he rose and stepped away from the bench. 

Aramis moved after him, put a hand on his chest and held the note over his heart. 

“With that one word you told me that I’ll always have a place with you, wherever you are.”

“Stop it. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Am I incorrect?”

Porthos just pouted and looked at his feet, making Aramis touch his cheek to try to get him to meet his eyes. Porthos did look, but he also flinched at the touch and took another step back, making Aramis curse and sit back down on the benchtop, feet on the seat with the note lying between them, hands wringing in his hair. 

“This note says everything about us.” Aramis murmured. “It’s our history. When we met in the courtyard, when you watched over me, when we began to forge our friendship, it’s the physical evidence of those long nights when you began to scribe your first words. All the notes of love and friendship since that we’ve left for each other over the years, they contained more words but this, right here, one word, means more to me than all the words ever created. Because I know what it cost you to write it. This was you letting me in. This gives me the rights to you heart, and you to mine. It tells me that no matter how wild my passions run, or how far I travel or how long I’m gone, I’ll always end up back here with you, where I belong.”

Aramis saw Porthos take a shuddering breath, then move forward, slowly, tentatively and pick the note up from between his feet. Patience finally deserting him and unable to resist being proactive any longer, Aramis took Porthos’ free hand in his and kissed it. When it wasn’t immediately withdrawn he kissed it again and gave a hopeful smile.

“I’ve missed everything about you. I did what I did and my reasons were sane and right, but through my entire time in Douai not a day went by when I would not spend hours thinking of you and dreaming of our reunion. Of seeing your face again, of exploring your memories, your mind and your body to find out what I’d missed. I’ve thought of this moment every day since I walked away to atone for my sins.” 

Porthos sniffed, squeezed Aramis’ hand then played with his fingers for a while before speaking in a low, soft mumble. “I’ve thought of it too. Four years I’ve had to plan what plays out here if you were to return. I've pictured where I kiss your forehead, your nose, your cheek, your lips. Then I make you realise that because you wrecked what we had you mean nothing to me any more and I walk away and leave you devastated.”

“You did devastate me. And I must say that it sounds like a very harsh, tragic end to such a long love story.”

“It is.”

“I would be terribly distressed if it were to end there.”

“I’ve pictured the scene every night and you are.”

“Do I cry?”

“Sobbin’ buckets.”

“My eyes must get very red.”

“Mmm. You look awful for days.”

“What happens then? You reject me so justly yet so cruelly, walk away leaving me shattered and destroyed, but then what happens to us both? The next day, the next week, the next year - what happens to us?”

A low hum rumbled in the back of Porthos’ throat then he took a step forward to stand between Aramis’ open knees and lightly batted their foreheads together. Porthos shook his head and mumbled sadly, “That’s where I’m stuck. All these years of practicing the scene in my head where I reject you but then I can’t ever imagine how either of us can move forward after that.”

“At least you get the upper hand.”

“Then why aren’t I happy after I walk away?”

Aramis kissed Porthos’ fingers again and gave them a squeeze. 

“Maybe the answer will come to you one day and you can put it into action. After all, four years plotting vengeance, that’s quite a mission.”

Porthos shrugged and stared at a point on Aramis’ chest. He fiddled with the ties on Aramis’ shirt, dropped his fingers to tug at the blue sash, the note still in his hand rustling against the material and making them both look at it. 

“Each day you were gone was another day I could harden my stance.”

“The Cardinal would be proud of you for such destructive plotting.”

Aramis reached up and lightly held on to Porthos’ hand, crushing the note between them. 

“It would seem a shame to not see your plan out to completion.”

Porthos made a pained noise and nodded in agreement then after a beat he swayed forward and rested his body and his forehead solidly against Aramis’ with a loud exhale.

His fingers dropped again to tug and adjust the blue sash wrapped around Aramis’ waist. 

‘You kept the note and you kept the sash.”

“Of course. You gave them to me as a part of yourself. The note meant everything to me the moment I read it. It took you a long time to tell me the significance of the sash but the fact that you left it for me meant I would always treasure it, regardless of knowing its origins. Then when you told me it had belonged to your mother....when I learned of its history and memories for you … well, I would never leave it behind. It's a part of me now.”

“Hmmph. You’d never leave my possessions, but you’re happy to leave me.”

Aramis grunted his displeasure at that theory then slipped his fingers beneath the matching blue sash under Porthos’ belt, angled his face to the side and whispered, “Your caution in all matters keeps you safe when you’re alone. You protect yourself from harm that way, I know. You keep this safe,” he said, sliding a hand out of Porthos’ grip and up over his heart. “And now you’re protecting yourself from me, in case I hurt you again and abandon you. I swear I won’t ever leave you again, I promise. And now I don’t want to leave you tonight but I will if it’s what you really do want.” 

His hands were let go then two very big, very strong arms surrounded Aramis and pulled him close and he could hear Porthos breathing heavily near his ear.

“My love, if it’s too much too soon perhaps we should wait until ….”

“Aramis, if you don’t shut up and start hugging me back right this second I’m gonna throttle you and throw your remains down the garrison well.”

Sighing and laughing with relief into Porthos’ ear, Aramis flung his arms around the expansive shoulders and tried to squeeze back as hard as he was being embraced.

"I remember the first moment I realised that I was in love with you. You managed to write your name for the first time with no help and you looked at me and beamed and I swear I thought my heart would burst."

Porthos pulled back and gave Aramis an incredulous look.

"You once told me you fell in love with me the moment when I kissed the pistol and aimed it at you on my birthday. And I know you told Athos that you fell in love with me the first time you saw me fleece the Red Guards out of their coin at The Wren."

Aramis shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

"That's the beauty of you, my friend. You are so magnificent that it's possible to fall in love with you over and over and over again."

Mirth bubbled in Porthos' chest then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was so infectious that Aramis found himself hanging onto Porthos' shoulders, shaking with laughter too.

When Porthos finally composed himself he took Aramis' face in his hands and studied him carefully, eyes now warm and tinged with hope. 

“You have no idea how much I've missed your brand of ridiculous logic. Are you really home, Mis?”

“Whenever I’m with you, I’m home.” 

“Stupid, sentimental fool. I’m gonna have to punish you, you know that, right?”

“I know,” sighed Aramis, stroking the nape of Porthos’ neck where he knew he liked it best. 

“It’ll be harsh.”

“I'll try to be stoic.”

“Maybe I’ll not sit next to you at breakfast one morning.”

“That would be terrible.”

“Or maybe one day when Madam Chopard bakes me one of them pies I’ll share it with Joubert instead of you.”

“My heart is breaking just thinking about it,” Aramis murmured, his lips brushing the earring and lobe of Porthos’ ear.

“The next time a sword slices me open I’ll ask the palace medic to sew me back up and I’ll tell the world that it’s because your stitching is too messy.”

Aramis went rigid and drew back, fixing Porthos with a scowl. 

“That would be cruel in the extreme.”

Porthos was enjoying this now, dimples deep as he bent to whisper in a conspiratorial manner.

“Or maybe, on my next birthday, I’ll place a melon on the head of a random soul and …”

A finger was placed firmly on his smiling lips before he could continue. Aramis’ eyes were wide with genuine concern. 

“Four years. Four birthdays. What … who … did you …?”

Making a face, Porthos shrugged and tightened his grip around Aramis, gently butting their foreheads together once again. 

“Was at the front of the battle the first year. No time to do anything even if we had the means to celebrate. Second year I was determined to at least raise a toast to it but we was ambushed on the way to Toulouse and didn’t even get to properly make camp for the night, least of all find an inn. Third year I missed it completely. In the grip of a fever for three days and only realised it had passed when I emerged from the infirmary. Then this year, I wasn’t fighting, wasn’t ambushed, wasn’t sick, but I didn’t have the heart to acknowledge it. Didn’t seem right, bein’ here, pretendin’ I was happy that another year had passed without you by my side.”

“I’m sorry, Porthos. Truly sorry.”

“I missed you so much.” 

It was just a whisper. A deep, heartfelt whisper. Five words that had no right to convey such emotion and meaning. But Aramis knew how much it cost Porthos to utter it and he wrapped his arms around him even tighter and held him close. 

“I missed you too, my friend, more than anyone, anything.”

“Then please ….” Porthos hesitated. “I told you I won’t say it, but you know what I want.”

“How about I ask you instead?”

Aramis took Porthos’ face in his hands and kissed him. 

“Porthos, my friend, please, will you stay with me?”

“Just tonight?”

“Forever.”

“Sure, ‘Mis, I’ll stay.”


End file.
